CR SCORES JUST ONCE ON SOPHOMORE DAY
Lumberjacks fall in doubleheader to visiting Yuba College
The College of the Redwoods softball celebrated their Sophomore Day on Saturday, honoring the five Corsairs at their final home games with CR before the team dropped both legs of a doubleheader versus Yuba College.
The Corsairs couldn't keep up with the first-place 49ers, with Yuba earning a 10-1 victory in game one before breaking things wide open with a 17-0 win to complete the sweep. The lone run that the Corsairs scored Saturday came on the final play of game one, with freshman Diamond Bibancos-Knight singling in sophomore Kyla Cockerham but on the play, freshman Maeghan Hampton was thrown out trying to go first-to-third on the play and was gunned down to end game one.
Cockerham and Hampton each led the Corsairs with two hits apiece in game one. CR would only get three hits as a team in game two with sophomore Allie Egbert, BibancosKnight and Catlin Caughie each getting a single in the shutout loss.
“When you don't hit the ball, you just don't win games,” Corsairs head coach Megan Valente said of the team's performance on Saturday. “We still want to play, we can still finish fourth in conference. We're beat up, we have to make adjustments and they (the team) has to want it.”
Sophomore Francesca Hart got the loss on the mound in both games for CR, the Corsairs were eliminated from Golden Valley Conference contention on Wednesday against Mendocino and the team didn't look like a squad competing at the top of their conference Saturday, getting mercy-ruled twice. The Corsairs were without one of their top arms on Saturday with freshman Nathalia Chavez missing the games Saturday.
“We beat ourselves, we've beaten ourselves all year,” Valente said. “I told them, we could've lost 100-0 but it doesn't matter because we didn't score a run.”
The five Corsairs honored for Sophomore Day were Cockerham, Hart, Egbert, Caughie and Ashley Pierce. CR had the families of the sophomores throw out the first pitch, with the players being celebrated on the field pregame.
“The growth of all five of the sophomores I'm proud of. I think they're going to leave better softball players and better people,” Valente said of the sophomores. “It was rough, thank you to everybody who came out, all the families who came out. Sorry we couldn't give them more of a show.”
The Corsairs season will
end on Wednesday, when CR goes on the road to face Butte for a doubleheader, with the Corsairs record sitting at 11-23 and 8-10 in the GVC following the losses Saturday.
“It's all in our heads, because we came out and competed against Feather River, Feather River is the same level as Yuba. That's what is so frustrating as a team, it's been a roller coaster,” Valente said of how the team compares to the ones atop the GVC standings. “It's just our mentality.”
Dominguez Hills sweeps `Jacks
Cal Poly Humboldt's softball team also dropped a pair of conference games on Saturday, with the `Jacks falling to Cal State Dominguez Hills 5-4 and 4-3 to drop Humboldt to 13-15 in the CCAA. The `Jacks now sit at 7th place in conference, one game back of 6th place Cal State East Bay, with the top six seeds advancing to the conference tournament in May.
Humboldt trailed 5-3 entering the 7th inning in game one but after sophomore Shelby Shanks doubled to leadoff the inning, the `Jacks couldn't apply any more pressure on the
base paths with the next three batters for Humboldt being retired to end the game. Junior Alyssa Smokey finished 1-2 in the game with a solo home run and was hit by two pitches.
Humboldt jumped in front in game two with a 2-0 lead in the 2nd inning but a two-out threerun home run for Dominguez Hills to take a 3-2 lead shifted the game on its head. Humboldt entered the 7th inning down one but senior Izzy Starr tied the game with an RBI single to drive in junior Hailey Meisenbach.
In the bottom of the inning, senior Vanessa Richie retired the first two Toros before an error gave
Dominguez Hills another opportunity at the plate, the opportunity wasn't wasted when the next batter, Mariah Ramirez, hit a walkoff two-run home run to end the doubleheader with two wins for the Toros.
Humboldt split the first two games against Dominguez Hills Friday before dropping both games Saturday. The `Jacks regular season ends this weekend with Humboldt welcoming the fourth-place Cal State San Bernardino to town for a four-game series opening Friday, while Cal State East Bay plays the eighth-seeded Stanislaus State at home.