Hollister pushes one of TCAL’s best teams to the brink in
10-inning game but fall 2-1
Hollister – The San Benito High softball team put up one heck of a fight against one of the Tri-County Athletic League’s other elite teams on Wednesday but fell 2-1 in 10 innings.
“It was a really good game,” said Hollister head coach Scott Smith. “We had been playing very solid defense all game long, unfortunately, we just let a couple of plays get away. But the kids played good, we had a lot of opportunities to win the game. You’ve got to give Notre Dame a lot of credit.”
It was an all-out pitchers duel early on between Hollister’s Dani Hernandez and the hard-throwing Kim Reeder of Notre Dame, who will be playing college ball at Ohio State next year.
Hernandez started the game with a solid, four-pitch strikeout of Spirits’ lead-off hitter Lauren Schutzler. Bri Cureton was up next and she reached base with a shallow hit to right field. But Hernandez was able to get the next two Notre Dame batters out on infield grounders, both of which were handled flawlessly by Baler shortstop Kristen Archuletta.
The score stayed at 0-0 until the top of the third when the Spirits brought a run across off of a Haybaler error.
Hernandez was working nicely with two outs and nobody on in the third but Schutzler pushed her to a full count and then earned the walk. She moved into scoring position moments later by stealing second.
Cureton was up next and she smacked one to Archuletta, who bobbled the ball a bit and then threw it past first base, allowing Schutzler to make it all the way home from second and putting Cureton safely on first.
But Archuletta did her best to make up for the play by ending another scoring threat later in that long third inning with a nice throw to first on a ground ball.
The Haybalers tied the game up with a dramatic sixth that saw Nicole Burns blast one into right for a triple before being brought home on an Archuletta single two batters later.
The two teams went back and forth in extra innings, neither defense giving an inch. But, in the 10th, the Spirits brought the go-ahead run across on another fielding error by the Balers.
It came down to the last at bat for Hollister with Julie Broyer at third and two outs down. Freshman Lizzy Gatto fought off seven pitches once she got Reeder into the full count but the game finally ended as she was thrown out at first on a close play.
