BY TJ GARCIA | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
PHARR — Consider it a senior moment.
Edcouch-Elsa four-year letterman Odessa Mata tripled in the bottom of the 8th inning and then scored the winning run on a wild pitch to give the Yellow Jackets a hard-fought 7-6 bi-district win over Sharyland Pioneer on Thursday night.
Mata, an elder statesman on a team bursting with freshman talent, came through just when the Yellow Jackets needed her most. She helped E-E overcome a seventh-inning 6-5 Pioneer lead and ultimately scored the run that put the Yellow Jackets up 1-0 in the best-of-three series being played at PSJA North.
“She (Pioneer pitcher Madison Sparks) had been pitching outside a lot, but that one she gave me down the middle,” Mata said of the pitch she whacked to the fence. “We won, but it wasn’t easy. Tomorrow, we know we have to come out here and fight. Eliminate errors, and wake up the bats early. They (the Diamondbacks) are going to come back hungry.”
Edcouch-Elsa freshman pitcher Ocean Gomez was knocked around early, as Pioneer put up five runs in the first three innings. Gomez settled in later and only gave up one hit in the last four innings of regulation. In the eighth, Gomez gave way to reliever Aliyah Cerda, who closed out the game.
Pioneer struck first, scoring two runs off of three hits in the second inning. E-E responded with four runs of its own to take a 4-2 lead. But that only fueled the Diamondbacks, as they scored three more runs in the third inning to snatch back the lead, 5-4.
E-E added another run in the third to tie the game, and Pioneer edged out to a 6-5 lead in the top of the fifth when Sarah Odale doubled to drive in Alexia Hernandez. Both players went 2 for 4, and they combined to score five runs for Pioneer.
But the one-run lead proved to be not enough. The Yellow Jackets sent six batters to the plate in the seventh and got three hits and a run off a tiring Sparks, who faced 36 batters on the night.
The tie score after seven innings set up Mata’s heroics.
“It (the win) builds momentum. Like I told them, this happened to us last year, and someone can come back and win two, like we did,” E-E coach Ruth Flores said. “We just have to keep it going. They are going to make adjustments. We are going to have to make adjustments and keep playing as a team and keep fighting.”