Huntington Beach, Calif. - The Golden West softball team (7-11, 1-9) fell victim to the five-inning mercy rule, losing 9-0 to Orange Coast College on Wednesday.
This was the second matchup of the season for these cross-town rivals, and the second time the Rustlers have struggled to produce. Starting pitcher for the Pirates, Ashlee Kean faced this Golden West team in both matchups, keeping them to two hits in February's 1-0 loss and three hits in this 9-0 loss.
"We got more hits this time," Assistant Coach Alan Caouette said. "We got some bad breaks on some balls hit off the end of the bat that dropped for base hits, but they kept playing hard to the end."
Starting pitcher for the Rustlers, Sennie Viramontes made her 14th start of the season, working through 4 2/3 innings. During her time out on the mound, Viramontes allowed 10 hits, and earned seven of the nine runs put on the board by OCC. Reliever Lali Rios entered the game and retired the final hitter of the day for the Pirates.
More than half way through the season, the Rustlers will need to remember the fundamentals of the game in order to find a way to start evening out their conference record. They have the chance to take one game out of the three from OCC on April 11.
"They've won way more games this year than they have in the last couple years combined, so that's a positive," Caouette said. "They're very tight as a team, so we're just going to remember that it's not a name pointing or blame game on other players. Just get back to the basics of the game, and go out and have fun."
NEXT: Golden West will take on Santa Ana College at home on Friday. The game is scheduled to start at 2 p.m.
Written By Marissa Lavezzari
