A seventh-inning defensive collapse ruined a fine pitching
effort by junior ace Juliette Bowers as the Live Oak High softball
team dropped a 3-0 decision to visiting Gilroy at Community Park on
Monday.
A seventh-inning defensive collapse ruined a fine pitching effort by junior ace Juliette Bowers as the Live Oak High softball team dropped a 3-0 decision to visiting Gilroy at Community Park on Monday.
Bowers had a perfect game going through six innings against the Mustangs, but consecutive errors to lead off the seventh inning opened the flood gates for Gilroy.
Boosted by its first baserunners of the game, Gilroy scored three runs on three straight hits and a costly throwing error to emerge with the victory.
But Live Oak coach Barry McDonnell gave Gilroy plenty of credit and bemoaned his team’s lack of execution on offense as much as its defensive lapses.
“We made that one mistake — the throwing error. They hit the ball to score,” McDonnell said. “That’s the hardest I’ve seen (Bowers) hit since the beginning of the season. The thing that hurt us was not getting a sacrifice bunt down a couple of times (earlier in the game).”
Live Oak fashioned its lone real scoring opportunity against Gilroy pitcher Sarah Villar, who allowed just three hits, in the fourth inning.
Samantha Ferry started the rally with a single to centerfield, then Alyssa Adamo followed with an infield single just over the Gilroy third baseman’s head.
The next two Live oak batters attempted to move the runners up with bunts but failed and Villar got three straight outs to quell the uprising.
Mustangs Patricia Olvera, Russhelle Preeshl and Amanda Tellez each had an RBI single for Gilroy during its seventh-inning rally.
Gilroy (2-8 in TCAL, 9-12 overall) got just its second league victory of the season with the win after a strong non-league start.
“This is the way we started the year,” Gilroy coach Julie Berggren said, “and, t’s nice to see it come back before (the season) was over.”
Villar said the victory was especially sweet coming as it did against league and neighboring rival Live Oak.
“It’s very big,” she said. “Gilroy and Live Oak is always a big rivalry, and I have a bunch of friends on that team.”
Live Oak fell to 5-5 in league and 12-10 overall with the loss.
The Acorns were coming off a third-place showing at the Watsonville Tourn-ament last weekend.
