By ADAM KUJAWSKI, Staff Writer
The District 32-6A playoff seeding is finally set.
The Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers wrapped up the play-in process with an 8-2 victory over the Hanna Lady Golden Eagles on Tuesday night at Hanna.
The win secures the Lady Chargers a spot in the playoffs. As the No. 4 seed in District 32-6A, Brownsville Veterans will face Weslaco High in the bi-district round in a best-of-three series starting 7 p.m. Thursday at Brownsville Veterans.
On Tuesday, the Lady Chargers trailed 2-1 until the fifth inning, when they scored five runs to help extend their season.
“Our group of girls arevery resilient now,” Brownsville Veterans coach Ray Cardenas said. “They believe in what they’ve been taught and to execute.
“Just like what happened in the last game against (Hanna). It took us a while to get our timing,(Hanna pitcher Juliette Gonzales) is a very good pitcher. She has a lot of velocity. But they were patient and strung some hits together and as that goes, the belief increases and the momentum increases, and it was like a ball rolling downhill that was hard to stop.”
Prior to the fifth inning, Gonzales had held the Lady Chargers to just two hits. However, the first five Brownsville Veterans batters of the frame reached base and scored.
Kiwi Silva led off the inning. She made it to first after she was hit by a pitch, and after Gigi Richeson advanced her to second with a single, Darlena Galvan hit a double down the left-field line to score Silva and Richeson for the tying and winning runs, respectively.
Sam Olivares entered as a pinch runner for Galvan and scored when Lydia Fernandez hit aninfield single. Rheanna Gomez, who drew a walk prior to Fernandez’s RBI, scored on a wild pitch. And Fernandez, who had made it to third on the same wild pitch, was brought home by a sacrifice fly from Sarah Sandoval.
The bottom of the Brownsville Veterans order accounted for a significant amount of the production during the game. The trio of Silva, Richeson and Galvan reached base the first six times they stepped to the plate and scored three runs, not including the run scored by Olivares.
“The bottom of our lineup has been very consistent in producing,” Cardenassaid. “They get on base, and they’re driving, and it’s been like that the second half of the season. We’re very fortunate that these girls are working hard. They believe in what they’re doing, and they’re executing at just the right time.
“One through nine, when we’re all clicking we’re very tough, and as long as they keep on doing that we’ll have a chance this weekend against Weslaco.”
The Lady Chargers added two more runs during the seventh, when Gomez and Fernandez each scored their second run of the game. Gomez hit a leadoff double, Fernandez followed with a single and they were each driven in by Cassie Valdez’s double.
“I’m a little disappointed,” Hanna coach Rey Lerma said. “We didn’t play anywhere close to our potential. We started hitting the ball early and we had our opportunities, but you’ve got to cash in. If you don’t cash in on your opportunities, it’s just not going to happen. In the end, I think emotionally it drained us.
“The funny part is,a lot of people didn’t give us a chance of being where we were tonight. They had written us off way before we played Los Frensos, and we got on a streak where we beat Los Fresnos, we beat Harlingen(High). We came in here and we had the lead here, we were in a position that people didn’t think we were going to be in.”
Hanna’s two runs came early in the contest, during the second inning. Briana Ramirez singled and made it home following a fielding error on a ball hit by the next batter, Salome McManus. McManus reached second base on the error and was driven in by a single from Sabrina Fernandez.
For Hanna, this game marks the conclusion of its season, but Lerma is excited about both what he saw this year and what’s in store for next season.
“I’m very happy the way we played (this season),” Lerma said. “You see the potential there. There’s a lot of good talent here. And this is probably a learning experience. We lose two seniors, and everybody else comes back. Next year I think we’ve got three or four juniors. So the freshmen and sophomores that are there,are going to be moving up.
“All of the things that hurt us in tonight’s game are things that can be corrected. And those are the things we’re going to work on in the fall to get ready for next spring.”
Adam Kujawski covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @adamkujo1.