A furious rally by the Dos Pueblos High softball team fell short as visiting Rio Mesa escaped Okinaka Field with a 5-4 victory on Friday afternoon.
The Chargers were coming off an 8-7 extra innings victory over the Spartans in the first game of the series on Wednesday, but couldn’t complete the sweep against a strong Rio Mesa team.
“We’ve been improving our competitiveness from the beginning of the season until now. We are really peaking competitively right now,” said Dos Pueblos High coach Mike Gerken. “I had no doubts that we were going to come back.”
Rio Mesa’s super sophomore pitcher Analia Lopez held the Dos Pueblos lineup hitless through the first three innings. The Spartans manufactured two runs in the top of the second inning on an RBI single by Leillah Burboah and a sacrifice bunt by Rihyanna Alvarez.
Lopez added to her own run support in the top of third inning with a solo home run to right field, increasing the Spartans’ lead to 3-0. Rio Mesa tacked on another run in the top of the fourth inning on an RBI single by Alvarez.
The Dos Pueblos offense finally broke through in the bottom of the fourth inning beginning with a leadoff single by Anastasia Brunner. Kaitlyn Ashby got the Chargers on the board with a two-out single that scored Brunner.
The momentum continued to build for the Chargers as they tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning.Kacey Hurley delivered the big hit with a two-out double that scored Anastasia Brunner and Aubrey Carreno, cutting the Dos Pueblos deficit to 4-3.
Freshman Julia Brunner held Rio Mesa scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings and the Chargers were able to even the score in the bottom of the sixth inning on a solo homer over the left field fence by Brooklyn Hedricks.
{Hedricks and Hurley} are multi-sport athletes, three-sport athletes, they just compete all year long, so it doesn’t surprise me when they are out here they are still competing,” Gerken said. “Both of those girls are highly competitive and they are great to have on our squad.”
Rio Mesa retook the lead in the top of the seventh inning on an RBI single by Jaslen Rios.
Anastasia Brunner delivered a two-out single in the bottom of the seventh, but the Chargers were unable to push her across to tie the score.
With the loss, Dos Pueblos drops to 9-9 overall and 6-2 in Channel League play. The Chargers have won seven of their last nine games.
