By Will Hernandez
Scoring three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning wasn’t enough as the Huskies were upset by Los Angeles Harbor College, 8-7, in a South Coast Conference game April 9 at home.
The Huskies’ record dropped to 10-21 overall, 7-10 in SCC play. The Huskies are in fifth place in South Coast conference standings.
“We might have had a chance had we shown up to play,” Head Coach Erika Blanco said.
Sophomore Evangeline Montes pitched seven innings for the Huskies giving up eight earned runs.
East Los Angeles College scored first. Harbor quickly evened the score in the top of the second inning with a one-out single to right field. In the bottom of the inning, ELAC roughed up Harbor’s pitching with four hits and cashed in two runs for a 3-1 lead.
ELAC went back on top in the bottom half of the fourth, scoring one run on a dropped fly ball to center field, for a 4-3 lead.
With the second run, Harbor took their first lead, 5-4. Harbor tacked on three insurance runs in the top of the sixth and seventh innings.
In their last chance at survival, the Huskies led off the bottom seventh inning with two singles by Montes and outfielder Heather Saucedo. First baseman Rachel Ponce cut the deficit to two, scoring both Montes and Saucedo. Ramirez scored the third run of the inning with a RBI single to left field. The Huskies then were a run away from knotting the game.
Gutierrez grounded out to shortstop to end the Huskies rally.
There was a number of calls the Huskies would have liked to have back. “It’s the game of softball.
“There’s always going to be balls and strikes that go by that we’d like to have back. The bottom line is that we should have never been in a situation that put us in a position to be hurt by a bad call,” Blanco said.
“As an athlete you’re going to have individual goals. There’s some kids who have good enough stats to transfer on and play ball at a higher level.
“Then, there are chances for some players to earn All-Conference awards.
Though the team goals may be out of reach, there’s still individual goals. That’s what they’ll be playing for through the rest of the season,” Blanco said.