After a loss against Glendale College, the Cerritos College softball team failed to pull out a win over Santa Ana.
Santa Ana beat the Falcons 8-2 in the seven inning game.

The Falcons were not fully making effective batting attempts and some players say the team approached the plate to bat in a very insecure way.

Sophomore infielder Haley Whitney is one of the team members that believes the team as a whole should really take advantage of the opportunities at home plate.

“(Fixing) the way we hit, not being so nervous,” Whitney said, “(we) have to just go out there and play our game.”

The team is composed of many players that have not fully played enough together as a team to win.

Head coach Kodee Murray knows that the chink in the teams armor is the lacking experience the Falcons do not have with playing with those on this season’s roster.

“We have to learn how to play together,” Murray said, “we have freshman playing in key positions, and they have to learn how to play at this level.”

Half of the team, seven out of 14, are freshman that are in charge in areas of the field that, according to coach Murray, they still have to gain some college ball experience.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game,” Murray said, “they have a very good (softball) program.”

The match began to favor the Santa Ana Dons as the falcons found it difficult to rip through the opponents defenses and run over home plate in the early innings.

Santa Ana’s swings scattered the ball skidding low past the pitcher’s mound and rolling into outfield causing delays to get the ball to either first or second base.

Freshman second base Monique Ramirez wanted to go into the game working tightly with her team.

“We just wanted to work as a team because yesterday (Glendale) we came up short.” Ramirez said.

The newly developed team lost against the Glendale Vaqueros 13-12 in a very close match where the last innings were crucial to the Falcon’s downfall.

With the game against Riverside fast approaching Ramirez is confident her team will come out to compete strong.

“We’re going to come out strong, I think with this upset we have learned a lot from the losses that we’ve had.” Ramirez said.

She also added, “personally I need to go up to bat with a better strategy.”

Whitney had a hitting average last season of .376, a number she looks to better.

“We are a little fresh,” Whitney said, “we need more time to mesh together, but I think once we do it we will be pretty good.

“We’ll get better at it,” coach Murray said, “we’ll be able to compete and do a better job in competing.”