KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
WESLACO — The case was simple for Harlingen, win and you’re in the playoffs. Unfortunately for the Lady Cardinals, Amanda Aguirre and Weslaco East had other ideas. The senior hurler threw a complete game, yielded six hits, three runs and fanned 11.
East scored in each of the first five innings and capitalized on a slew of Harlingen errors en route to a 6-3 win, keeping their postseason hopes alive. Harlingen falls to 5-6, but remains in the fourth spot, while East gains a game and is 4-7 with three games remaining.
Harlingen will host Los Fresnos tonight at 7, while East will meet Brownsville Rivera.
“We need to get mentally tough,” said Harlingen coach Nora Aguilar. “The kids need to go out there and have fun, and they have to want it. You got to go out there and play hard and give it your 100 percent. In these last three games we need to stay focused, the kids need to want it and stay hungry.”
In the second inning, tied at one, Allison Rogers drove in Britney Garcia giving East a 2-1 lead. In the third inning, Aguirre gave up a lead off double to Eneli Garza and issued a walk to Zoe Rosas. Garza tied the game off a wild pitch at two runs each.
Aguirre shook off the rust and struck out the side. Aguirre continued her barrage of strike outs, as she would fan five consecutive batters and retired the next two batters she faced before giving up a base hit in the fifth inning.
The back breaking innings came in the bottom of the fourth and fifth innings. Harlingen’s two errors in the infield paved the way for three runs in the fourth and fifth inning. The Big Red managed to get two runners on and brought the tying run to the plate three times.
Aguirre worked around the trouble and struck out two of the final three batters she faced.
“We left too many runners on base,” said Aguilar. “We had too many girls looking at the third strike, we were trying to kill the ball, we needed base hits, but it didn’t go our way tonight.”