KEVIN NARRO | Staff Writer
HARLINGEN—When Harlingen South and San Benito meet up, there is no telling what can happen.
Friday night’s clash of the softball titans was a tussle for early district supremacy and certainly lived up to the hype.
In a game that featured five homers, it was the fifth inning that will have Lady Hawks fans talking for some time.
Trailing by four with the bases loaded and one out, Harlingen South’s Kytana Muniz hit a bases-clearing double to cut the lead to one run. Alyssa Ledesma followed with the game-tying RBI and then came the heroics of Kayla Rogers, who hit a go-ahead, two-run shot that eventually sent Harlingen South to a 9-8 win over San Benito on Friday night.
“I really wasn’t trying to hit a homer,” Rogers said. “What my team needed was a hit and to just get one base. I was supposed to bunt, but I was just thinking, see ball, hit ball, and everything leading up to this. I came through, and I’m just proud. I didn’t know the ball went over until I ran past second base and I saw the ball go over, and I heard everyone screaming. I just broke down I was so excited.”
Rogers finished the night 1-for-3 at the plate, and Muniz went 2-for-3 with four RBIs and one run. Ledesma also went 2-for-3 with an RBI and one run scored.
“Was there frustration? Yes, but we went against a quality team in San Benito,” South coach Elias Martinez said. “Just like last night, our girls hung in there and played tough. It was no big deal, we just needed to wait for our hits to come and take advantage of that, and that is what we did.”
The Lady Hawks rallied in the six-run fifth inning and are now in first place two games into the district season.
While the night was filled with twists and turns, San Benito came out swinging. San Benito took a 1-0 lead into the third inning, when Jordan Ramos drilled a two-run single that gave San Benito a 3-0 lead.
The fireworks didn’t stop there. During the top of the fourth, the Lady ’Hounds received back-to-back homers from Kate Garza and Megan Cavazos that put them ahead 5-1.
“It wasn’t just pitching, there were a lot of things: spots missed, defensive miscues, and we need to answer back with our bats,” San Benito coach Denise Lira said. “We had a few innings where we went three up and three down, and that can’t happen. We need to be able to get those runs back or at least get one run back, and we didn’t do that consistently enough through the game.”
Harlingen South’s offense continued to swing away in the bottom of the sixth. Muniz and Krystal Gonzales drove in a pair of runs that stretched the lead to 9-5. During the top half of the seventh, Ramos came up big again with a three-run home run that trimmed the lead to one run.
“Tonight it could have gone either way, and tonight it went our way,” Martinez said. “With our lineup we just need to get that one hit, and it starts from there. Softball is a funny sport, when you get on a roll you need to take advantage of it, and when San Benito hit that last homer I knew it was going to be fun if it wasn’t fun already.”
Ramos finished strong at the plate, going 2-for-3 with six RBIs and one run scored. Garza went 1-for-3, and Cavazos went 2-for-3.
San Benito will play host to Brownsville Hanna on Tuesday, and Harlingen South travels to Brownsville Rivera.