BY MARK MOLINA | The Brownsville Herald
The Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers got a gem of a performance from junior pitcher Mia Anzalua against the Corpus Christi Carroll Lady Tigers, but it wasn’t enough to overcome mistakes and missed opportunities.
After the Lady Chargers couldn’t provide run support and made key errors on defense, the Lady Tigers took advantage and walked away with a 4-0 Game 1 win in their best-of-three regional quarterfinal series Friday night at Brownsville Veterans Memorial High School.
Game 2 is today at 2 p.m. at Cabaniss Field in Corpus Christi with Game 3, if necessary, to follow 30 minutes after Game 2.
The Lady Chargers were held to just four hits and stranded nine runners on base on offense, while a pair of infield errors opened the door for two-run double by Lady Tiger Linzee Leal in the fifth and a pair of unearned runs crossing in the sixth.
“We had a drop on a pop up and we also had that throwing error,” Lady Charger head coach Rayner Cardenas said. “I’ll tell you what, it was the one timely hit that (Carroll) got as opposed to when we had our opportunities, we couldn’t get that one timely hit and that was the difference in the game.
“We gave up some runs when we shouldn’t have, but the credit goes to Carroll for taking advantage of the opportunity that they had.”
Anzaldua gave up just five hits, walked one and struck out 17 batters for the second time this postseason in the loss.
“We had a couple of errors and as the innings went on, our defense got shaken up,” Anzaldua said. “You have to let that go because you can’t win if you don’t score and we were in that position where we hadn’t got any runs. We tried to get the bats going, but that didn’t work either.”
Carroll freshman pitcher Vanessa Quiroga struck out nine, walked five and gave up four hits in a shutout victory.
“We feel good about the win, but at the same time we know what kind of team is on the other side,” Carroll head coach Rosa Caballero said. “We know that when your back is against the wall, you have a little more fire, a little more passion. We expect Game 2 to be tight, close and we have to be able to make the plays on our end and hopefully manufacture a few more runs.”
The Lady Chargers had their chances in the bottom of the first inning after a double by Cassie Valdez and a single by Anzaldua put them at the corners with one out, but Quiroga struck out the next two batters to leave them stranded.
In the bottom of the second inning, the freshman walked three batters to load the bases for Brownsville Veterans with one out, but an infield fly and a force out would end the inning.
In the top of the fifth, the Brownsville Veterans defense came unglued as Carroll’s Samantha Miller hit a ball right back to Anzaldua, who would drop it and over throw the ball to first.
Miller got to third base on the error and would come in four batters later on Leal’s two-run double up the third base line to make it 2-0.
“The pitching against us was awesome (Friday),” Caballero said. “(Anzaldua) did a good job mixing it up, keeping us off balance and she worked the corners in and out. I feel like we just stayed with it, stayed in the game and stayed focus. Our goal once we got on was to try and manufacture runs, not try to do to much and just try to push a run across and we did that.”
In the top of the sixth with two on and no outs, a throw to second base bounced and rolled to the centerfield wall, allowing two more Lady Tiger runs to score.
Despite the uncharacteristic outing, Cardenas is confident that Game 2 will be different at the plate and believes Valdez will come through in the circle, but mistakes must be avoided.
“In the third round, the team with the least mistakes is going to win and (Friday) we had a little bit too many,” he said. “I feel good with Cassie (Valdez) going up there. She has had a great career at Veterans High School. She’s given us all she’s got and has had a lot of accolades and a lot of accomplishments. If we can find a way to get on that board, get a hit here and there to get us going, I feel good with Cassie.”