The cheers of fans echoed around the field as El Camino went head to head against Fullerton College in the Warriors’ first game of the playoffs.
El Camino went into the game as the fifth seed in SoCal and the visitors were the No. 12 seed.
The Warriors took game one of the three-game series against Fullerton College, defeating the Hornets 2-0 in seven innings.
“I just think both teams are really well prepared and both teams competed today,” coach Jessica Rapoza said. “I was just really proud of [the Warriors’] competitive nature and their ability to not get to excited and not get to down about anything.”
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The Warriors had a slow start to the game. Both teams remained scoreless in the first two innings. A triple hit down the right field line by sophomore infielder Kristen Romero in the bottom of the third let sophomore shortstop Tori Garcia score the first run. Romero also scored the second run for the Warriors in the same inning.
“I think we prepared for [the game] like we prepared for every other game,” sophomore first-baseman Jacqueline Gonzalez said. “We just stayed within ourselves and we didn’t want to make it that big of a deal or anything so we treated it like any other game.”
Fullerton tried to rally and made efforts to stop EC from scoring but the Warriors adapted their approach to the game both offensively and defensively.
“We are always trying to make little adjustments when we read the hitters on defense,” Rapoza said. “We try to make little adjustments as far as shifting and stuff like that. And then offensively, we always try to make adjustments to what the pitcher is throwing so we have tried to do that all year and we just executed today.”
In the sixth and seventh innings, Fullerton got some good hits and base runs but couldn’t score a run.
“It was just a really good match up,” sophomore third baseman Danielle Bonsky said. “We have been a really good match up in the past as well and so it was just a really good all-around game.”
The second game in the series against Fullerton is Sunday at noon. A tie-breaker game if necessary will take place at 2 p.m.
“I think it was important to win just to give us confidence to go into tomorrow to make it easier on ourselves,” Gonzalez said. “I think we’re good matches for each other and I think we both played good games.”
