By MARK MOLINA | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
The Brownsville ISD softball tournament had been nice the Los Fresnos Lady Falcons, who scored 27 runs and posted four straight wins during the first two days of play.
Coming into the final day of play, the Lady Falcons didn’t let up a bit as they hit their way to an 8-1, five-inning win over the Edcouch-Elsa Lady Yellowjackets Saturday afternoon at Lopez High School.
Leading 2-0 after three complete innings, the Lady Falcon Reba Reyes stepped to the plate with two on and two out and hit a three-run homerun over the left field wall, starting what would be a four-run inning.
To that point, Reyes was 0 for 2 against Edcouch-Elsa starting pitcher Aaliyah Cerda, but felt it was just a matter of time before she found the pitch she wanted.
“During my first two at-bats, I was very indecisive on whether I should swing at pitches or not and I ended up getting out both times,” Reyes said. “During that third time up, I saw the pitch and said ‘that’s the one’ and it was pretty awesome to see coach (Traci) Blackman happy. I brought two runs in, plus me, so that was pretty cool.”
Overall, the Lady Falcons brought in their eight runs on eight hits and got a solid outing from starting pitcher Val Guevara.
Los Fresnos head coach Traci Blackman said that Saturday was another indication of her team’s continued improvement during the early part of the season.
“Our offense is still okay and we’re working on it and we’re going to keep working on it,” she said. “It seems to be the best part (of our team) right now, but our defense has gotten better at this tournament. We’re just going to continue. We’re still working on our pitchers and still working our spots, so hopefully everything works out.”
Guevara officially pitched four complete innings, giving up just three hits, no earned runs with three strikeouts and two walks before the 90-minute time limit ended the game in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Cerda gave up eight hits, three earned runs and walked six for the Lady Jackets, who finish the tournament.
The Lady Jacket defense also committed a couple of costly fielding errors, including one at third base that extended the top of the fourth inning on the at-bat before Reyes’ home run.
On offense, Edcouch-Elsa stranded six batters, but head coach Ruth Flores said she saw some good things from her team over the weekend despite going 0-4-1 in tourney play this weekend.
“We did better defensively against Los Fresnos; we played them earlier this season and it was 14-4,” Flores said. “There was more heart from the girls and they were trying harder, so hopefully we can go in the right direction. We did our job but we need to get our bats going with district coming up on Tuesday.
“We wanted a better outing to get us going, but we’ll just have to have a good practice Monday and hopefully do well.”
Los Fresnos got on the board in the top of the second on a passed ball that brought in Ida Ibarra and on an RBI single by Carla Ortiz to bring in Clarissa Ibarra moments later to make it 2-0.
Edcouch-Elsa looked to answer in the bottom of the third inning after loading the bases on a couple of hits and a walk, but Guevara retired the next three batters to get Los Fresnos out of the jam unscathed.
“Our biggest obstacle is our mental game,” Blackman said. “That was part of that mental game. (Guevara) just hung in there, stayed focus and did what she does.”
The Lady jackets trailed 6-0 after the big fourth inning by Los Fresnos, but managed to get on the board in the bottom of the fourth when Brianna Gonzalez hit the ball into left field, only for it to go through the glove of Ida Ibarra, bringing in Samantha Montelongo on the error.
Los Fresnos would bring in two more runs in the top of the fifth.
Edcouch-Elsa would add a run of their own in the bottom of the fifth, but not before the time limit and an injury to Kailey Gonzalez while sliding into home plate would end the game.
LOPEZ 6, MCCALLEN MEMORIAL 0
After going 1-3 during the first two days of the tournament, the Lopez Lady Lobos ended on a high note earlier Saturday by defeating the McAllen Memorial Lady Mustangs 6-0 in 4 1/2 innings.
The Lady Lobos scored six runs on five hits and put up multiple runs in the first and third innings.
Pitcher Alex Castro pitched four shutout innings, allowing two hits, no walks and struck out four in the process.
“Our pitcher was able to hit her spots very well, was able to control and shut them out,” Lopez head coach Jesse Martinez said. “When our pitching is on, we’re an entirely different team and our hitting was good. Overall, I think we played well this tournament. We played Los Fresnos tough and played La Joya much better than last time where we didn’t score at all. I’m happy with where we’re at right now and it’s starting to come together after these tournament series and we’re expecting to have a good district run.”
Lopez opened the game with a two-run first inning as Leslie Solis put the first run on the board by beating the throw home while Kassi Rubio reached first on the fielder’s choice.
Rubio came in to score three batters later on a Bianca Olguin sac fly to make it 2-0.
In the top of the third, Lopez scored three more runs, coming on a walk with the bases loaded, a squeeze play and a passed ball to make it 5-0.
Rubio would put the final run on the board with a shot to left field which resulted in a couple of Lady Mustang errors, allowing her to come in for the score.
The Lady Mustangs finish the tournament with a mark of 1-4.
“I think the trip got the better of the girls,” McAllen Memorial head coach Audra Benavides said. “There is a silver lining when you play great competition. All three days we’ve been set up with tremendous teams. I tell the girls that if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best and play the best. I think we have done a good job at that. It wasn’t the performance we wanted, but we played good ball this weekend and played some great teams.”