After playing five intense games during the weekend at the Golden West Tournament, EC’s softball team collapsed Tuesday afternoon against Cerritos in a 9-0 loss on the road.
The women will travel to Long Beach today for a game, and are preparing to face pitcher Sadie Barton again.
In their previous game against Long Beach, the Warriors were shut out, with Barton throwing 18 strikeouts en route to a 2-0 victory.
Freshman pitcher Brittany Garland knows exactly what was wrong with the rest of team against Cerritos.
“We were exhausted,” Garland said. “But not practicing plays a big part in how you perform in games.”
Garland pitched four innings on Tuesday, striking out four, before giving way to sophomore Ginger Martinez for the final inning.
The game was called when the mercy rule took effect.
“All she has is a rise ball,” Garland said. “If we stay off that pitch, she will walk every one of us.”
The Warriors’ away game against Long Beach is being approached in a very strategic manner because of the starting pitcher the Vikings will be using.
“The coaches are always telling us, ‘If the pitch is above your wrists, don’t swing,” Garland said. “Everyone swung at the rise ball the last time.”
Despite the loss against Cerritos, coach Susie Calderon remains optimistic about the remainder of the regular season after the team’s third place finish at the Golden West Tournament during the weekend.
However, she is aware of what the team must do in order to continue to win and not suffer anymore setbacks like the one from Tuesday afternoon.
“We were playing very well before the Golden West Tournament, as well as during (the tournament),” Calderon said. “The talent is here; the women just need to pull together as a team.”
In the tournament, the women played five games, winning three while losing two.
Garland and sophomore Vanessa Spychaj were named to the first team all-tournament selections. Yet Calderon saw a different team in the game on Sunday.
“I don’t know if it was the lineup changes I was forced to make,” Calderon said. “But we were a totally different team on Sunday.”
The main reason Calderon was forced to make lineup changes Sunday was because Spychaj suffered a concussion on Saturday, which will disable her from playing for an entire week.
Freshman catcher Blair Brooks also noticed the same differences that Calderon saw in the team on Tuesday as she did on Sunday.
“We were all exhausted,” Brooks said. “Our confidence was up going into the tournament, and we played our hardest on Friday and Saturday.”
Yet, the same intensity from the tournament was not displayed by the team against Cerritos.
“Tuesday’s loss definitely carried over from Sunday,” Brooks said.
Aside from the results, Garland, Brooks and Calderon credited Cerritos as being one of the best hitting teams in the South Coast Conference.
“No matter what I threw at them, they hit it,” Garland said. “They are a great hitting team and we can’t take that away from them.”
During the tournament, the Warriors faced Fullerton and College of the Desert Friday.
Then they played San Diego City and Chaffey on Saturday and finished the tournament facing Palomar on Sunday.
The women were able to beat the eventual tournament champion, San Diego City, but they lost to the runner-up, Palomar.
“I feel that we should have won that tournament,” Calderon said. “If we would have won the whole thing, this team would have been unstoppable.”
