The El Camino College Warriors continue their nine game winning streak in the win against the Santa Ana College Dons on Saturday, April 19, at Warrior Field.
The Warriors took an 11-3 victory against Santa Ana College.
Warriors right fielder Cami Garcia started the game off with a clean pop-fly catch, signaling to fans in the stands that this game wasn’t going to be an easy victory for either side.
Warriors coach Jessica Rapoza previously coached the current coaches of Santa Ana. Both teams knew what they were getting into ahead of this game. It was just a matter of coming out and playing some ball.
“Myself and the head coach played for Rapoza at Santa Ana 12 years ago,” Dons assistant coach Alyssa Yglesias said. “So now she’s here, so the strategy is just kind of knowing exactly how she plays and it’s always super good.”
A run-less second inning leaves the score at 1-0, but when the Warriors score five runs in the third inning due to multiple RBI’s, the Santa Ana team started to bring the heat.
The Dons scored three times in the top of the fourth inning, with two RBI and a score on a throwing error to trim the lead in half.
This was a game with multiple close calls, steals and the misconceptions of the tie always going to the runner being laid to rest on the ECC Softball Field.
First base umpire Darren Deckard did have the say, after a collision at first base led to an obstruction call on Warriors first baseman Savanna Kastigar.
After the call, Rapoza challenged the call and made her way across the field to the umpire. The call was upheld and the runner was ultimately ruled safe.
“I had two arguments,” Rapoza said. “One that the runner never established getting into the runner’s lane and then two, it’s not obstruction if my fielder’s trying to catch the ball, which she was.”
Rapoza was still able to guide the team to their latest victory, with the team constantly turning doubles into triples by taking the chance to run every time they saw delay in Santa Ana’s defense.
Both teams dealt with close calls that didn’t end up ruling in their favor, but Rapoza says that having a “so what?” mentality is crucial to moving on and winning the game.
When a catch is missed on a would-be double play that would end the inning, so what? The key to the team is focusing on getting that next out.
“If a call happens during the game or a mistake happens, we just try to move on right away, forget about it and keep playing,” Rapoza said.
Rapoza’s coaching brings the team one step closer to playoffs and the end of their regular season.
“She’s a great coach and we were blessed enough to play for her, so we just came in and wanted to play some good softball,” Yglesias said.
The Warriors move to (32-6) and the Dons move to (12-26) on the season. The Warriors will be home to face the Long Beach City College Vikings on Monday, April 22, at 3 p.m.
Editor’s note: A misspelled name and a duplicate paragraph were corrected Thursday, April 24.
