The Cerritos Falcons softball team earned their fifth win of the season on Wednesday, Feb. 19 by a final score of 4-2 against the visiting Ventura College Pirates.

Sophomore pitcher Kat Flores pitched a complete game for Cerritos to earn her first win of the year. Flores finished the game giving up seven hits, two runs (one earned) and a lone strikeout.

After the game Flores shared some thoughts on her performance.

“I just trusted my defense. I knew they were there to back me up the whole time and I just kept pitching.”

Flores says that she took advantage of the Pirates aggressive approach while ahead in the count, by hitting her spots and getting the ball put in play to her defense.

“I just put the ball there so they could put it in play for my defense to work too.”

The Falcons were kept at bay through four innings by Pirates pitcher Alex Thorp, but in the fifth the dormant Falcons offense erupted for four runs on three hits with the big one coming off the bat of sophomore first basemen Haley Whitney.

Whitney came up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth and launched a bases clearing double into the gap in left center field putting the Falcons ahead for good 4-2.

Whitney shared how she felt about her performance after the game “I feel really good, I got my job done and I got some numbers on the board so that’s always good.”

Whitney mentioned that the win built confidence for her to take into tomorrows’ conference game on the road against the rival East Los Angeles Huskies, whom she knows pretty well.

Sophomore third basemen Ariana Mejia gives her thoughts on the win, “I’m excited that I started the game with a hit and I want to continue getting hits.”

Mejia got her arm taped up after the game, due to throwing out her arm earlier in the week during practice. Mejia concluded by acknowledging that she is playing injured “Yes I am, for the team.”

Head softball coach Kodee Murray gave her input on the Falcons performance. “Haley Whitney has really stepped up and done a great job for us today.”

Murray also acknowledged a solid performance at the plate by catcher Haley Petruccelli, who collected two hits at the dish on this day.

Murray talks about the complete game thrown by Flores “That was Kat Flores’ first complete game in two years and it was an awesome performance.”

The Pirates hitters were fairly patient against Flores, especially early on, but as the game went along, Flores was getting outs in hitters’ counts and according to Murray this was due to Flores ability to hit her spots throughout the game.

Murray concludes by talking about what her pitchers approach was, “You know sometimes a pitcher is trying to have her ball disappear at the plate and drop off or curve or something and I think Kat was just on and her balls hit her spot and she just really did a fantastic job.”