The California Lady Pintos softball finished second Sept. 24 at their annual Turf War Tournament, defeating North Callaway 10-8 and Montrose 11-1 before falling to Mexico 12-6 in the championship game on their home turf.
On Sept. 27, California was back in action to host the Blair Oaks Lady Falcons. The Lady Pintos struggled to stop the powerhouse hitting game of Blair Oaks and despite an effort to extend to game, Blair Oaks walked away with a 15-2, six-inning victory over California.
Having lost 12 of their last 13 games to Blair Oaks dating back to 2010, California knew how important a win over Blair Oaks would be for their conference and district standings, as well as putting to rest some painful memories of past losses. Lady Pintos softball Head Coach Steven Stock was not bothered about California's past losses to Blair Oaks and said it had no effect on the Sept. 27 game.
"There wasn't any added pressure today. Give credit to Blair Oaks. They just hit the ball really well and jumped on us with six in the first inning," Stock said. "But I was proud of how our girls responded. We shut them out for the next four innings, we had a chance, (and got it) down to 6-1 in the third. But the bottom line is their pitcher was over-matching us today and we didn't have much of a chance at the plate, hence we only had a couple of hits. Then they poured it on us a little bit later. They were the better team today."
California began the game with senior Gabrielle Rohrbach on the mound. From the opening pitch of the game, the Lady Falcons jumped out on the Lady Pintos with a lead-off single by junior Baley Rackers. The next batter, senior Emma Wolken, then hit a two-run home run to left field to put the Lady Falcons up 2-0 in a blink. Later in the first, freshman Belle Boessen followed Wolken's lead with a three-run home run to left-center field. Rackers added another run with a fielder's choice to make it 6-0 Blair Oaks in the first inning. After the inning was over, Stock inserted freshman Peyton Dunham as California's new pitcher.
California struggled with finding a way to hit off of senior pitcher Olivia Mayer, who had come to the ballpark throwing curveballs and change-ups that kept the Lady Pintos guessing and swinging. California got their first run and first hit of the game in the third inning when Rohrbach hit an infield single to score teammate Ella Percival from third base.
The score was 6-1, favoring Blair Oaks, going into the top of the fifth inning, where Boessen struck again with her second three-run home run of the game to left-center field. Senior Kenadi Braun hit a solo home run on the next at-bat. Blair Oaks added one more run on an RBI single from Rackers to go up 11-1 and were three outs away from defeating California in five innings.
California grounded out for their first two outs of the fifth inning, but the Lady Pintos were not ready to head home yet. Junior Kylee Wright and freshman Ryleigh Roellig hit consecutive doubles off Mayer to make the score 11-2 and extend the game one more inning. In the sixth, Blair Oaks put the game firmly out of California's reach with four more runs. Mayer retured the side in the bottom the sixth to give Blair Oaks the win 15-2 in six innings.
Blair Oaks had two impressive players in the game according to coach Stock. First, Boessen, who had went 3-3 with six RBI's from her two three-run home runs, but it was Mayer who Stock was most impressed by. Mayer faced a total of 21 batters in last Tuesday's game and struck out 13 off those batters.
"She's a whale of a pitcher. She's going to throw any pitch she wants and, as a hitter, you've got to be able to adjust. We tried to make that adjustment, but she was just better than us today," Stock said. "We had Peyton come in and she competed well for us when we brought her in. However, we booted a couple of balls and made some mistakes that led to Blair Oaks putting four or five runs on the board. We were 11-1 and got back-to-back doubles to keep the game going and our girls showed that they were not going to quit. So I am proud of that."
The loss to Blair Oaks was a difficult one in the fact it came only two weeks from the district tournament. However, Stock said the way to win softball games is no different at any time of the year, but he said every game becomes more and more important as California continues to fight for a conference title and a high seed in the district tournament.
"You always want to play your best at the end of the year. You can spin however you want, but we play Blair Oaks around this time of year, every year, and they were just the better team today," Stock said. "You've just got to go out and pitch the ball, catch the ball, hit the ball, and play ball. So we're going to go out to Boonville on Thursday and score one more run than they do. It's another big game and the fact that they're a district opponent makes it more important. It might be a difference in us being the seven or eight seed, or the three, four, of five seed in the district. It's a big game in that aspect, but we've got to go over there and hopefully play the best we can."
Despite a valiant effort in Boonville on Thursday night, the Lady Pintos came up short 5-4 against the Lady Pirates. Their record now stands at 11-10, with four games left before the playoffs. California plays in Osage on Thursday.
Senior Alexa Gunnerson crosses home plate to give the Lady Pintos their first run of the game in the third inning. (Democrat Photo/Evan Holmes)
Freshman Peyton Dunham took over as relief pitcher and pitched five innings for California last Tuesday night. (Democrat Photo/Evan Holmes)