On Wednesday afternoon, the M-A softball team cruised to a 17-0 victory against the El Camino Lady Colts. The lob-sided game ended in the fifth inning after the mercy rule was enacted.
Sophomore starting pitcher Elise Koo starred for the Bears defense. Through five innings, she struck out 14 batters while only conceding one walk and leaving very little for her defense to do behind her. On her performance she said, “Today I felt really confident in the circle. I knew my defense had my back and that helped me hit my spots and get outs.”
M-A initially struggled to get on base to start the game. However, freshman Juliana Pandolfo jump started the offense by ripping a single and collecting the game’s first hit. Soon after, senior captain Ashlynn Roeder grounded into a fielder’s choice, allowing Pandolfo to score. The Bears ended the inning with a small 1-0 lead.
After a quick defensive inning, the Bears returned to the plate in the top of the second and blew the game out of reach. After sophomore Carey Maletis and junior Reese Glotzbach started off the inning with back to back singles, freshman Miya Yu drove both of them home with a single.
On the next at-bat, senior captain Dani Koo hit a deep single, allowing Yu to score from first. Numerous errors from the Lady Colts and doubles from both Kylie Cox and Elise Koo helped the second inning snowball into a 9-0 lead.
While Dani Koo drove in one more run during the third inning, the Bears’ offense was held scoreless in the fourth. However, M-A regained their rhythm in the top of the fifth inning and exploded with six runs on five hits. Roeder singled, scoring two runs, Koo doubled, scoring one run, an error scored one run, and freshman Emma Loose singled, scoring two runs.
When the game was all said and done, the Bears’ offense ultimately amassed a whopping 16 hits. Roeder drove the middle of the lineup, leading M-A with three runs batted in. The Bears’ offense was truly firing from all cylinders as the Koo sisters, Pandolfo, and Loose each collected multiple hits.
Reflecting on the game, Dani Koo said, “It was nice for us to generate a strong offense and string together some hits, especially after a slow start.”
The Bears play next on May 7th at home against Mills High School in a showdown between the top two teams in the league.
