Tati Foor
Staff Writer
The La Verne softball team secured a series victory over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in conference play this weekend, despite losing the final game of Saturday’s doubleheader 11-3 in six innings at Campus West in front of 164 fans.
After winning 2-1 at Claremont on Friday and 3-1 in the first game of the doubleheader, the Leopards struggled to maintain momentum in the final game against the Athenas.
CMS jumped out to an early lead, scoring four runs in the first inning. The Leopards responded with a run in the bottom of the first when senior left fielder Angelina Alderete scored on senior designated player Alyssa Campbell’s sacrifice fly, but then the Athenas continued their strong offense with four more runs in the second inning.
“I think we got a little complacent,” head coach Danielle Kaminaka said. “We had two great games, and I think there was a bit of fatigue. We let the game happen to us instead of making things happen in the game.”
The Leopards struggled against CMS sophomore pitcher Ella Yerkes, who earned the win after allowing three runs on four hits throughout four innings. La Verne’s senior starting pitcher Kirstin Sanchez took the loss, giving up eight runs in 1.1 innings.
Junior pitcher Jaidynn Alvarez gave her team 4.1 innings of relief on the mound, allowing three runs with only one earned, and eight hits. Despite the tough game situation, Alvarez maintained a positive attitude throughout her performance.
“I was just trying to stay focused on my team and just get the job done, considering we had a rough few innings,” Alvarez said. “I just wanted to go in there and give us a fresh start.”
“Jaidynn worked her butt off,” Kaminaka said. “She’s someone who we rely on to come behind a starter regularly, so she spends every game in the bullpen getting ready for that job, and today she came in and did a great job at that.”
The Leopards came into the bottom of the fifth inning down 9-1, but then were able to get two more runs on the board to make it 9-3 and to continue the game. Alderete had an RBI single, followed by senior center fielder Ashley Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly.
CMS responded with two more runs in the sixth to put the game to an end.
“I think our mental preparation was probably the biggest thing,” Rodriguez said. “Our coaches talked about it after the game. We weren’t mentally prepared to step into this game to win it. We have the ability to win three in a row, but I think where we were slacking the most was our preparedness mentally.
Freshman shortstop Mackenzie Johnson acknowledged the need to make adjustments against the CMS pitchers.
“Adjusting was our biggest challenge,” Johnson said. “Their starter was getting us on our timing, so we used our timing swing tools that we had.”
“We have to want the third one more than the first two,” Kaminaka said. “I don’t think it was a conscious settling and being happy with the first two. However, there was also not a conscious ‘we want this one more than the last two.’ That change needs to happen.”
The Leopards followed the loss with a doubleheader sweep of Whitworth on Monday, 6-1 and 8-0. But they were swept by St. Olaf in a Wednesday doubleheader, 9-3 and 11-3.
Their record sits at 11-8 overall and 3-2 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The Leopards return to Campus West on Saturday for a non-conference doubleheader matchup against Linfield at 1:30 p.m.
Tati Foor can be reached at tatiana.foor@laverne.edu.
Tati Foor is a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations, and a staff writer for the Campus Times.
