With their backs up against the wall following Saturdays 5-4 Southern California Regional playoff loss against Southwestern College, the Falcons saw their season come to an end after they lost Sunday’s game two of the series against the Jaguars, suffering a 15-7 defeat that ended in a sixth inning mercy-rule finish.
As Saturday marked the opening of the 2012 Southern California Regional playoffs, The Falcons hoped to continue their winning ways.
Southwestern, riding it’s own six-game winning streak, had it’s own plans of moving deeper into the playoffs.
A closely-contested game on Saturday, the 5-4 loss for the Falcons left them, needing to win the Sunday matchup in order to force a third game later in the afternoon.
In game one, both teams were held scoreless in the first inning. The second inning seemed to be more of the same before the Jags freshman infielder Alex Gallegos hit a two-run homerun, ending the scoreless affair.
Freshman infielder Alex Ross said, “It feels great to come out with the win. We prepared all week.”
Both teams brought in a run in the third inning, keeping the battle going.
Although the Falcons attempted to claw back through Saturdays game, it was not enough. A strong fifth inning for the Jags proved to be too much for Cerritos College. Loosing their first game of the series, the Falcons hoped to come back strong on Sunday and pull out a win, forcing a third game.
Southwestern freshman outfielder Mallory Boyd talked about what assisted in their success. “We came out here [from Chula Vista, Calif] early to get in extra practice,” she said.
During Sundays game, the Jags came out swinging in the first inning stringing together some key hits, being capped off by a three-run homerun by Freshman utility player Briana Albrektsen gave Southwestern an early 3-0 lead.
The towering homerun blast cleared the center field fence with ease.
Cerritos College came up to bat during its half of the inning and found some success as a ground ball single scored a run for the Falcons.
Southwestern freshman infielder Alex Ross felt that the strong start helped the teams focus.
“Scoring three runs that early pumped us up for the rest of the game. We were ready to go out there and take the series home,” she said.
Fielding was an issue for the Falcons early during the game as they could not keep up with the well placed hits of the Jaguars.
The Falcons attempted to come back from behind, but could never pull together the hitting and fielding that was required to win.
Cerritos College Head Softball Coach, Kodee Murray is proud of the effort that her team showed this season.
“I thought we played together the whole season. Our kid’s battled all the way and we fell short this weekend,” she said.
Cerritos College sophomore second baseman, Alexxa Sanabria described Sundays game as back-and-forth.
“It was a battle. They showed up ready to play. We showed up ready to play,” she said.
The loss ends the Falcons season, while Southwestern moves on to Saturdays Super Regional’s matchup against College of the Canyons beginning May 11 thru 13. The winner of that series advances to the State Championships which are to be held at Bakersfield College on May 18 thru 20.
