By Dan Gudino
The softball team, after winning its opening game of the season, continued its downward slide yesterday and lost to Mount San Antonio College 8-0. ELAC has now lost seven in a row.
A softball game is seven innings. ELAC was allowed to play five innings before the mercy rule was used after it failed to score a run in the 5th.
ELAC was held to two hits in the game. Mt. SAC’s freshman pitcher Jessica Olvera has not allowed a run over her last two starts. Mt. SAC collectively has allowed two runs in their last eight games and is the best team in the South Coast Conference at 10-1.
“Anytime you play top teams, Mt. SAC being one of them, you gotta put up runs. You have to hit with them and we know that. In the last few years that we’ve beat Mt. SAC we were hitting with them. No one in this conference is going to pitch no-hitters, so the nature of this conference is hitting. In this game we were not aggressive and we didn’t make adjustments at the plate,” Head Coach Erika Blanco said.
ELAC is now 1-7 in the season. Huskies coach Blanco is still optimistic of a turnaround in the season, since 28 games remain.
“Consistency, we just haven’t been consistent. We’ve only had a few games where we actually got beat badly, like this one, other than that every other game it’s been one run games,” Blanco said.
The two hits ELAC managed to get were from sophomore infielders Sujey Zamudio and Alizah Mayagoitia.
Coach Blanco said they can not afford to go without the bat of freshman Griselda Vazquez. She is currently batting .333 and has a hit in all but two games.
“She’s (Vazquez) a freshman believe it or not. She has not hit in the last two games which has affected us. She is a game changer for us in terms of hitting, she’s also one of our pitchers which is great, so we have to have her in the lineup,” Blanco said.
ELAC plays a 3 p.m. game at Los Angeles Harbor College today. Harbor is 2-9 in the season.