Everything clicks as LO trounces Pioneer 10-1
MORGAN HILL — For the Live Oak softball team, 2009 has become a rebuilding year. But that doesn’t mean the Lady Acorns can’t lay a beating now and then.
Tuesday felt like old times at Live Oak High School. Kelly Hillman pitched four hitless innings in a complete-game effort, Brooke Willis and Kayla Cisneroz doubled, and Jenna Robertson belted a three-run home run that was catalyst in a 10-1 triumph over Pioneer.
The Acorns moved to 3-6 in Mount Hamilton Division play.
“It felt really good, especially because, the past few weeks, we haven’t been doing the greatest,” Hillman, a senior, said. “This was one of our better games. We just needed a big play to get things going.”
Tuesday’s boost was supplied by Robertson, whose third-inning blast off Ashley McMahon put Live Oak ahead for good.
“I just wanted to get up there and hit,” said Robertson, who also doubled, scored twice and drove in four runs. “That’s not really much of a strategy, but it worked.”
Against McMahon, whom Robertson used to play with in travel ball, Robertson was expecting a changeup after working the count to 2 and 2. But McMahon went with a rise ball — which Robertson launched over the left-field wall.
The Acorns were off and running from there. Hillman collected two of her eight strikeouts in the bottom half, and Live Oak scored three more runs in the fourth inning and four in the sixth.
“A big hit like Jenna’s just boosts everyone up, and then they want to hit as good as that,” Hillman said. “If we keep hitting like this, I think we’ll be winning more games. Our attitude will keep up.”
And if the hitting trend doesn’t keep up?
“We need to make it happen in the field; keep working hard,” Robertson said.
They did that in the second inning, when Pioneer (2-7) tried to pull off back-to-back squeeze bunts. Willis stopped the first one, flipping the ball to catcher Kourtney Kientzy. The Mustangs went ahead 1-0 on the second try, though, when Kalise Pfund slid under Kientzy’s tag.
Live Oak jumped in front on Robertson’s blast, then broke loose in the fourth with RBI singles by Kientzy and sisters Stephanie and Kristen Doting. Stephanie Doting scored her second run in the sixth on a ball hit by Priscilla Orona, and Robertson and Willis followed with run-scoring doubles. Cisneroz’s RBI single ended the spree.
Kientzy and Cisneroz reached base three times, and Jacey Turay batted 2 for 3 for the Acorns, who totaled 13 hits.
Hillman yielded six hits; all in the first three innings.
“My (curveball), my screw and changeup and rise,” she said when asked what pitches were most effective. “Basically, everything was working for me.”
