Craft pitches Yuba City past River Valley

There wasn’t much pregame expectation of Wednesday’s Yuba City-River Valley softball battle being a competitive one. Certainly not from Honkers’ pitcher Blake Craft, who specializes in shutting out opposing teams. And not even from Falcons’ coach Craig Rice, whose club began the week having been outscored 370 in its previous three games.

But that’s what crosstown rivalries are for – to take our expectations, rip them up and put them in circular files, where they belong. Sure, Yuba City beat host River Valley 4-1 to remain within arms length of league-leading Pioneer in the Tri-County Conference standings. But that the Honkers (13-3-1, 5-1) only led by a run entering the seventh inning eliminated the word “forgone” from the game’s conclusion.

Yuba City, which was playing for the first time since beating Woodland two weeks earlier, touched River Valley pitcher Holly Brennan for a pair of runs in the seventh, one of them on Lexi Delozier’s Little League home run; i.e., a triple to right and a Falcons’ outfield error.

Craft walked Caylee Mae Williams to start the bottom of the seventh, but retired the next three batters, including Izzy Tinoco on a third strike looking to end matters.

“It was tougher than we expected,” said Craft, who finished with 10 strikeouts and a two-hitter. “RV definitely brought their defense and we just couldn’t hit – we hit them, but right to people. We just couldn’t find the gaps.”

Yuba City finished with 11 base hits, including a 3-for-4 efforts from both Delozier and Corrine Belser, whose two-out double in the top of the third scored Delozier and pinch-runner Monique Villavicencio with the game’s first runs. But the lefty Brennan kept the Falcons (3-11-1, 2-6) in the game by keeping the Honkers off balance just enough to prevent big innings.

Honkers coach Trish Lucich didn’t mince words when assessing her team’s play.

“Bad. Poor,” she said. “I’m not taking anything away from (River Valley). They played a very good game, their pitcher threw a very good pitch. But we made some baserunning errors. Our pitch selection wasn’t good today, we were swinging at things up. We didn’t get the bunts down when we were called to get the bunts down.

“We didn’t practice last week and it showed today. A lot.”

In the end, Lucich will take the victory. And Rice will take the loss, particularly since his team’s second in two days which didn’t end in mercyrule fashion. On Tuesday River Valley lost to Rio Linda, 3-2.

“A lot better than I thought,” he said of Wednesday’s outcome. “I couldn’t ask for anything better, except for more hits and a win.

“But I enjoyed their effort – stayed in the game, made plays. Effort, it’s just about effort. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Brennan struck out three and had what might be a single in the Falcons scorebook when she hit a one-out screamer off Belser’s glove at third base in the bottom of the sixth. An inning earlier, Tinoco, a freshman, had a no-doubt single to score Williams from third.

Yuba City is back in action today at home against Rio Linda. River Valley is scheduled to play in the Stephanie LeDoux Tournament in Roseville beginning Friday.

The junior varsity game was also won by Yuba City, but in much easier fashion. Angel Scott pitched the Honkers (14-4, 5-1) to a 15-0 victory in five innings Sophie Afato had a triple and Reyna Gutierrez a double.

River Valley (0-11, 0-8) was led on offense by Mikaela Aparicio Garcia, who was 2 for 2. Both Jessa Maheras and Tori Miller were 1 for 2.

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