The Cerritos College softball team offense led them to a 7-3 win in a conference matchup against the Compton Tartars on March 22.
Right-handed pitcher, Reanna Carranza, made her 21st game start and added another win to her record as well as improved the team record to 14-7 on the season.
She allowed a few Compton hitters to reach base in the top of the first to give the Tartars a 1-0 lead but her offense quickly backed her up as they put up a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game up at one a piece.
Her batterymate who was doing the catching for Cerritos, Jimena Velazquez, explained how they were able to answer back all while staying calm.
“We focused on our good pitches and passing the bat in order to get people on base,” Velazquez said, “I think we did a great job of just doing that and keeping it simple.”
The Cerritos offense would then go on to score in all but the last two innings of the game.
In the fourth inning Cerritos scored most of their runs, where they went on to bring in three runners home.
Natalie Basurto and Jimena Velasquez both singled and rallied to bring in those three runs.
The Falcons defense wasn’t at its best as they committed three errors and although Carranza gave up 10 hits she was able to limit the damage to only two earned runs while the last one was scored due to one of the errors.
The Tartars were cheering loudly in the visitors dugout but the Falcons weren’t going down easy as they had at least one runner on base every inning.
Last time these teams matched up it took 10 innings for Cerritos to come out with a victory. Head coach, Kodee Murray, added on to what Velazquez said about passing the bat and explained this is a new and long-term approach the team is going to take.
“We’re trying to get on anyway we can so that we pass the bat to the next player…I think our new approach is a long-term approach to get us to [the] playoffs and bigger than just beating Compton,” Murray said.
More run support was shown in this game than in the previous one and Velazquez said she thinks the team focused on pitch selections a lot more and knowing the person behind them can get the job done.
Murray said, “Today we were able to get a couple of those weren’t real hard hits but we were able to run the bases well and score some runs.”
The Falcons will play their next game hosting the Cypress College Chargers on March 25 at 3 p.m.
