The Cerritos College softball team left their runner on third base in an 8-7 loss against El Camino College on Tuesday, April 14 at Nancy Kelly Field.
In the hopes of another win, these women in spiky cleats entered the seventh inning trailing to the Warriors by two runs, but end up two games behind El Camino with three conference games remaining.
Assistant coach Jenel Guadagno said, “We fell a little bit short, we were hitting the ball. But we left too many runners on that’s for sure. Left too many pitches up in the zone.”
She added, “Overall I think we should have won that game, but it didn’t work our way.”
In the first inning, the Falcons hit three straight singles after shortstop Jenny Collazo hit a home run, but second baseman Monique Ramirez hit a popup to end the inning.
With the bases loaded in the second inning, catcher Krystal Purkey grounded into a fielder’s choice to end that threat.
Purkey then smashed a two-run home run in her next plate appearance and the Falcons opened up a 5-0 lead against El Camino and were confident to put the game in the bag at an early state.
Purkey said that she worked really hard to help her team out as best as she could but fell short at the end, “I think that we worked really hard and we should have won the game, but not everything went our way today, but we deserved the win.”
El Camino Warriors fought back with two solo shots in the fourth inning and took the lead in the fifth inning, with the big hit being a two-out grand slam by winning pitcher Reina Trejo.
Pitcher number nine Ana Pedroza pitched consecutive walks, the second of which drove in a run before surrendering a grand slam.
Collazo hit her second home run of the game, a solo in the sixth to make it a 7-6.
After the Warriors added an insurance run in the top of the seventh inning, the Falcons started their comeback attempt.
Outfielder Haley Petruccelli led off with a double, while infielder Raquel Norzafary walked.
A sacrifice bunt by Ramirez advanced the runners, while an out in the infield from outfielder Jasmine Javier brought home a run.
Centerfielder Joanna Perruccio grounded back to the pitcher to end the game.
Perruccio said, ” I could have done better, but it’s just how it went. We came out short we didn’t have some breaks.”
The Falcons next game would be on April 15 at ELAC.
