The Cerritos College softball team suffered a brutal loss to conference rival Long Beach City College 2-8 on March 29.
The game started with a quick three outs for the Vikings on their first outing at bat.
Quickly the Falcons came out swinging with a lead-off triple by Jazmine Macias to start the bottom of the first inning.
This would soon lead to a pair of runs added to the scoreboard for the Falcons as Marley Manalo brought Macias home with an RBI single and Nadia Landeros added to that with an RBI double bringing Manalo home with the Falcons taking an early 2-0 lead on the Vikings.
Unfortunately for the Falcons, this would be the last time they would score in this game.
After both teams saw an easy three and out in the second inning the Vikings finally put a run on the board decreasing the lead to only a one-run deficit.
In the 4th inning, this is where the Vikings would completely takeover the remaining of the game by making a statement in this inning.
It all started with Alynna Gonzalez hitting a rocket down to left field to tie the game and the Vikings kept going.
LBCC would go on to get six runs on nine hits at the top of the 4th inning giving them a huge 2-7 lead.
“In the inning where they scored a lot, we didn’t calm down, I feel like everything was so out of control and we just need to take it easy more,” Manalo said discussing what went wrong for the team in the fourth.
The Falcons would go on to struggle the rest of the game only able to hit the ball two times after the great start in the first inning.
The Viking’s defense was able to take control of the game with an outstanding pitching performance by Bayleigh Fry.
Fry would only allow four hits and two earned runs forcing multiple groundouts and pop flies in this game making it difficult for the Falcons offense to gain momentum.
But the same can’t be said for the Falcons starting pitcher Reanna Carranza who struggled in this one.
Carranza gave up 19 hits and nine earned runs against the Vikings, Carranza is coming off a week of pitching 18 innings and she talks about how she may have not been 100% going into this game.
“I did pitch 2 games already this week so I wasn’t a hundred percent but I was still mentally trying to push through and finish the inning,” Carranza said.
This is a loss the Falcons would like to forget but also learn from, Head coach Kodee Murray speaks about the challenge that was presented by LBCC.
“The whole team is legit, the whole line up one through nine, they play strong defense, they pitch extremely well, you gotta play lights out and you gotta be able to hit against their pitching.
It was a tough day, our girls fought all the way through but it wasn’t enough,” Murray said.
After losing two straight conference games the Falcons hope to bounce back on April 1st against Santiago Canyon which is the first of four straight road games.
