Coyotes complete sweep of Stallions, CMAC
Wendy Alexander/ The Madera Tribune
Madera’s Kaylee Patlan reaches down for one of her two hits in Thursday’s victory over the Madera South Stallions to help the Coyotes win the league championship.
With a resounding 6-0 victory at Zimmerman Field, the Madera Coyotes softball team finished the County/Metro Athletic Conference season with an unblemished 10-0 mark and its first CMAC championship since 2012.
With the sweep of Madera South, the Coyotes haven’t lost a game to their inner-city opponents. It also marked the first 10-0 CMAC for the Coyotes since 2011.
“We finished undefeated in league and that’s a great accomplishment,” head coach Judy Shaubach said. “It feels good to get back on top.”
The Coyotes have placed second to Bullard-Fresno six of the last seven seasons. The Coyotes went undefeated by battering their opponents. They scored 105 runs in 10 games while allowing just 17. Madera hitters had a .418 batting average, a .472 on base percentage and a .615 slugging percentage.
They hit seven home runs with 23 doubles and five triples. Madera stole 54 bases and were caught just twice. For good measure, they walked 26 times against 22 strikeouts.
Pitcher Alexis Galvan was 9-0 with a 1.72 ERA. She allowed just 13 earned runs in 53 innings. She struck out 76 batters and yielded just 16 walks and 38 hits.
Galvan struck out a career-high 13 batters on Friday. She allowed three hits and walked a batter.
At one point, Galvan retired 13 of 14 straight batters. She struck out the side twice.
Meanwhile, although Madera banged pitcher Elena Garcia around for five hits over 2 2/3 innings, Mariah Williams had some success over the final 3 1/3 innings. She allowed one run on two hits with four strikeouts.
“We wanted to keep a great offense off balance,” Madera South head coach Peter Gallegos said. “That’s a great team over there with great coaches. We have a lot of respect for them. That was our goal. We wanted to give them our best so we could compete.”
After the game, the Coyotes re-focused to the upcoming playoffs with a Tuesday date at Arroyo Grande on the coast. Meanwhile, Madera South will regroup and get ready for 2022.
“This was a great group of seniors,” Gallegos said. “We are looking for a good future with a great cast of girls. A lot of girls have seen varsity and know what it’s like to compete in the CMAC. We’re going to get ready. We’re creating a summer softball program with them. I’m glad everything is getting back to normal.”
“We need to pick our game up. It’s a new season,” Shaubach said. “We’re going into playoffs. Only one team is going to come out with wins. We have to think about the journey we’ve been on and what they want to accomplish in the next week. There’s a lot of distractions with graduation, prom. They have to prioritize and be ready to play.
We have to do some work on our hitting. We have to get our hands back fast. We were hitting the ball well against Clovis North and Buchanan. We have some practices to get our game quicker.”
The Stallions had their best inning against Galvan in the first. A two-out walk to Williams and a single by Anna Garcia put two runners on, but Galvan got a strikeout to get out of the inning.
From there, Galvan was masterful. She allowed a bunt single to Jessica Garcia in the third. However, Garcia was tagged out on the play after she turned towards second base after hitting the first base bag.
Elena Garcia had a single in the sixth, but her pinch-runner was stranded at second after a pair of strikeouts.
Madera looked to be rolling in the first inning.
Erika Perez singled to lead off the first and stole second. She went to third on a Lealani Ricks single. After Ricks stole second, the pair advanced on a passed ball with Perez scoring.
Kailea Ricks drew a walk and then stole second. Briannah Hamilton singled home Lealani Ricks. The ball went by the left fielder and Kailea Ricks scored while Hamilton advanced to third.
Eliza Nunez grounded out and Hamilton scored. Two batters later, Kaylee Patlan reached on an error and stole second, but a groundout ended the inning,
The Coyotes were retired in order in the second before starting a two-out, nobody on rally in the third.
Nunez led it off with a ball into the right-center gap. She ran through Shaubach’s stop sign at second and slid into third with a triple. Arissa Arias drew a walk and stole second. Kaylee Patlan reached on an infield single while pinch-runner Nevaeh Galvan scored for a 5-0 lead.
Kailea Ricks led off the bottom of the fifth with a sun double that was missed by the centerfielder. The ball was thrown into the infield and nobody got it for the Stallions so Ricks ran to third. She scored two batters later when Galvan singled to left for the 6-0 lead.
Alexis Galvan had an uneventful seventh inning getting a popup to Ricks at short and striking out the final two batters for the win.
