Dominant pitching prevails as Vintage ties with Redwood in season-opener
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
The beauty of sports is sometimes you’ll see something that you or others haven’t seen before.
It’s even weirder when one sport plays like a completely different sport.
Both we true on Monday afternoon as the Vintage softball team opened up their season with a scoreless tie against Redwood of Larkspur.
With a scoreless contest, that often means that there is incredibly solid pitching. The Crushers (0-0-1) got nice efforts in the circle from sophomores Raimy Gamsby and Shelby Morse.
Gamsby started the game and worked five innings. She struck out seven on the day while walking none in 77 total pitches.
Meanwhile, Morse worked the final two frames of the game. She had one strikeout on the day and no walks as well all while throwing 22 pitches.
“Those girls are both solid,” Vintage head coach Robert Poppe remarked. “They put in the work to get the results they need on the field. We’re just trying to do our best to not live off of pitching this year.”
Both teams had their opportunities to push across a run in the game as well.
Vintage had their best chances in the final two innings. In the bottom of the sixth, Morse began the inning with a leadoff double to right-center. Ultimately, that was followed by three straight outs that resulted in a missed chance.
In the seventh, Gamsby began the inning with a single that was later followed by Bianca Avalos drawing a walk with a Sarah Husted single to load the bases. Unfortunately, a Morse flyout to right ended the game due to darkness even though both teams wanted to go to the international tiebreaker.
“The positives are by the sixth inning we were making the adjustment,” Poppe said. “We were hitting the ball. As you saw in the seventh, we were actually able to produce some hits. Again, it just goes back to making those corrections sooner than later in the game.”
In the second, the Crushers also were able to get a runner to second when Perez walked and Gamsby singled, which sent Perez’s courtesy runner Tessa Bright to second base.
Finally, the fourth inning saw Vintage get yet another runner in scoring position when Perez walked and Bright stole second before being followed by a Barboza walk.
Vintage was led at the plate by Gamsby (2-for-3 two singles), Morse (1-for-4 double), and Husted (1-for-4 single).
The Giants (0-1-1) had runners in scoring position in the top of the second and sixth.
Vintage will be back in action on Thursday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. when they visit Maria Carillo-Santa Rosa.
