Kylee Brown, sophomore second baseman for the Falcons, led her team to victory by hitting two home runs against visiting East Los Angeles College at Nancy Kelly Field on Tuesday, March 14.
This is the first time Brown has hit more than one home run in a game for her team.
She contributes her two home runs to relaxing and not trying to do too much, just focusing on trying to get on base.
Cerritos College’s softball head coach Kodee Murray said Brown’s home runs couldn’t have come at a better time and shows how tough of a player she is.
Murray said that early in the game Brown went out there and made two errors in the same inning and could have collapsed and fallen apart. Instead, Brown came back with a three-run home run and then a solo home run that allowed the Falcons to mercy the visiting team.
Murray also said, when talking about Brown, “It’s not what happens, it’s how you react to it, and I think she did a fantastic job of reacting to it.”
This seems to be the theme for this year’s Cerritos College softball team. Although it has multiple players hurt and with the team only carrying a 16-player roster, each member of the team is vital to its success.
Murray said that she keeps her team small, especially compared to its opponent East Los Angeles, as she looks over at the visitor’s dugout, so every player contributes to their victories and their defeats.
Kristen Voller, sophomore pitcher for the Falcons, started the game and pitched 3.2 innings for her team before reliever Carly Gutierrez came in the game and pitched the final 1.1 innings.
Gutierrez came into the game in a pressure situation. The bases were loaded with two outs on the board. She said when she was put in she knew she had to throw strikes and hope her defense was covering everything else.
She went on to say that she is always ready to go in the game at any time and she lets her coach know she is ready, regardless of the situation she is put into.
The Falcons won in the fifth inning after Brown hit her second home run of the game and Lesley Briseno’s RBI put the final run on the board.
The five inning victory marked the seventh time this season the Falcons have ended a game with the mercy rule.
“It feels super good to mercy a team and finish on a good note,” Brown said.
She continued, “I think we need to take this momentum into the next game and just remember who we are and stay focused on one goal, that is to win.”
According to Murray the Falcons have a tough schedule coming up starting with EC-Compton Center at home on Thursday, March 16 followed by Orange Coast Saturday, March 18 and El Camino Tuesday, March 21.
She said, “We have a tough three game series ahead of us now, so we just have to take it a game at a time and see what we can do about it.”
