By ADAM KUJAWSKI,Staff Writer
The Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers took a big step forward in their race to capture a spot in the playoffs.
With a 6-0 win over the Hanna Lady Golden Eagles on Friday night at Brownsville Veterans, the Lady Chargers pulled to .500 in District 32-6A with a 5-5 record.
“This is huge,” Brownsville Veterans coach Ray Cardenas said. “We’re fighting for playoff positions here, and the fact that we beat them twice gives us the tiebreaker if it’s just us two. But the fact that we put ourselves in a position to now control our own destiny helps us as far as positioning. We know what we need to do, and that’s win one more game.”
The victory marks a two-game sweep of the series for Brownsville Veterans and drops Hanna to 4-6 in the district.
“We’ve got to win out,” Hanna coach Rey Lerma said. “We’re just going to have to play much more solid softball to finish out. I told the girls, ‘It all begins with the heart, and if we lose the heart we’re not going to be (in the playoffs).’”
Freshman pitcher Cassie Valdez put together another stellar performance to help her team earn a critical win during the second half of district.
Valdez shut down the Lady Eagles’ offense by allowing two hits, three walks and notching nine strikeouts — six with runners on base — during a shutout effort.
“(Valdez) had a good performance,” Lerma said, “but we’ve been hearing that all season. I’ve had other coaches tell me, ‘Hey, watch out for that kid, everything is there.’ So we knew that she was going to come in and hit the corners. We swung at some bad pitches, and we let good pitches go by. You can’t put yourself in a defensive position when you’re trying to bat.”
Valdez also joined in on the scoring when she hit a leadoff home run during the top of the fifth to extend her team’s lead to three runs.
“(Valdez) is a freshman, but we’ve been talking about it at practice, and she’s no longer considered a freshman as far as experience,” Cardenas said. “She’s now a veteran, a part of our team, and she’s playing like it.
“She’s a phenomenal player. She has a fantastic attitude. Her work ethic is beyond belief, and the proof is when she plays. She’s going to be a fantastic player for us for the next three years.”
Hanna pitcher Juliette Gonzales had been the other half of what was a pitchers’ duel for the first three innings. But Harley Morales began the process of unraveling Gonzales’ effort by hitting the first of back-to-back doubles during the fourth. Kiana Silva, who drove in the first run of the game, accompanied her. Silva’s hit was the first of her three-RBI night.
“We got the ball up high, we didn’t keep it low enough and they started turning on it,” Lerma said. “The hits they were getting were solid hits, and they were falling where we weren’t. They’re a good hitting ballclub. They’re well-coached and everything. We just put ourselves in a position to where we didn’t make the plays.”
The runs quickly piled up after that for the Lady Chargers. Following Valdez’s home run in the fifth, Sarah Sandoval drew a walk, Thalia Perez hit a single and Silva hit her second double in as many innings to extend Brownsville Veterans’ lead to five runs.
The Lady Chargers added one more run during the sixth when Yisel Richeson hit a double to left field, advanced to third on a sacrifice popup and scored on a fielding error by Gonzales.
“We knew that (Gonzales) throws with a lot of velocity,” Cardenas said. “The last three or four days we gave up practicing on defense and everything was strictly offense: increasing the bat speed and increasing the hand speed.
“It took us a while, but that second time around (the batting order) we told the girls to back off a little bit, and finally all the hard work we put into it seemed like it started to pay off.”
The Lady Eagles were mostly silent offensively. They threatened but did not score on three occasions. Cassie Abrego hit a leadoff single during the second inning and reached second base on an error, but Valdez retired the following three batters.
During the fifth, Britany Rey hit a one-out double but the next two Lady Eagles struck out. And in the sixth, Itxel Martinez and Abrego each drew a two-out walk, but Valdez issued a strikeout to end the threat.
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.