Fielding miscues doom Pintos against Eugene

When California and Eugene met at Jamboree roughly two weeks ago, it looked like the teams matched up evenly.
When they met again Monday night, countless errors by the Pintos allowed 12 unearned runs to cross the plate, resulting in a run-rule-shortened 15-1 victory for the Eagles.
"We made too many errors," California head coach Darrell Bolin said. "Not only mental errors, but game errors and things that we had talked about and done. It was just a combination of errors and one error became two and two became three.
"They put up two crooked numbers up on us and honestly our girls just weren't ready today."
Eugene (3-1) scored one run in each of the first three innings, but the floodgates didn't open until the fourth when the Eagles batted around and plated five runs to take a commanding 8-0 lead.
Eugene tacked on another run in the fifth and then batted around again the following inning, posting six runs on the board in the sixth to end the game an inning early.
"As a coach, I couldn't ask for more," said Eugene head coach Jessica Adrian. "I have a group of girls that are outstanding. They come out and they do what we need them to do every practice and every game. As a coach, we're lucky to have that from top to bottom in the lineup."
Eight of Eugene's nine batters tallied a hit against the Pintos. Leadoff hitter Lexi Dickerson went 3-for-5 with two triples and A.J. Blochberger finished 3-for-4 with two doubles and two RBI. Paige Hurley and Whitley Wilson also had two hits apiece for the Eagles.
Eugene was able to keep a zero in California's run column thanks to pitcher Paige Rademann. The sophomore held the Pintos to one run on five hits while striking out four.
"(Paige) did an outstanding job," Adrian said. "She's young, but any type of tweak I have for her, she makes it. She comes out and pitches as if she was a junior or senior."
California (2-2) got a solid pitching performance of its own by Kaitlyn Turner, but the sophomore was largely let down by the fielding woes behind her. Turner was only charged with three of the 15 runs allowed.
The Pintos would have been shut out had it not been for sixth inning hits by Jessica Reynolds and Kendra Dunham that helped scratch out a late run. Turner, Destiny Cook and Jenna Berendzen accounted for the other three California hits.
With almost the entire season yet to play, Bolin and the Pintos will hope to simply put Monday's performance in the rearview and use it as a learning experience.
"Hopefully this is the bottom and everything else is up from here," Bolin said. "Kaitlyn threw a great game, her defense just didn't help her out at all. You're not going to win when you give a team that many unearned runs."