Coyotes split in softball tournament
The Madera Coyotes opened the Washington Union Softball Invitational with a victory over Kingsburg, but dropped the second game to Sierra Canyon-Chatsworth.
The Coyotes looked just like the team that defeated the Vikings two years ago in a run to their first Div. II Valley Champions.
Madera, again, is one of the favorites for the Div. II title and showed it Thursday with an early 6-0 lead against the Vikings before recording a 6-4 victory.
“We battled in that first game,” head coach Judy Shaubach said. “We have to quit giving up big innings. We’ll have one inning where we’ll lapse defensively. We played well defensively.”
The Coyotes trailed 2-0 against Sierra Canyon before driving across a run in the bottom of the sixth. However, the Trailblazers scored five times in the top of the seventh for a 7-1 victory.
Madera 6, Kingsburg 4
The Coyotes scored two runs in the third, fourth and fifth inning for a 6-4 victory to open the Washington Union Softball Invitational on Thursday.
Tea Layne led the Coyotes with two hits, including a triple. Layne also sparked the Coyotes defensively with numerous plays at second base, including running down two pop ups into the outfield.
The Coyotes took advantage of five Kingsburg errors, which led to six unearned Coyotes runs. Kaylee Dawson picked up the win in the circle with two strikeouts.
Dawson allowed baserunners in the first two innings, but got out of trouble with forceouts.
Haley Perez started the second inning rally with a walk. Pinch-runner Kailie Gutierrez went to second on a wild pitch. Valerie Ornelas hit a slow grounder to the pitcher, but the Kingsburg pitcher threw wild to first base, allowing Gutierrez to score and sending Ornelas to second.
After two strikeouts, Hollee Brown singled up the middle to drive in Ornelas for a 2-0 lead.
Madera added to its lead in the fourth. Ornelas led off the inning by reaching second on an error. Layne singled to left to move pinch-runner Brooke Gill to third. Dawson grounded out, but Gill came in to score. Brown followed with another groundout to drive in Layne for a 4-0 lead.
In the fifth, Mikayla Ruiz led off with a single. Cuevas reached on a fielder’s choice when Ruiz reached second on an error. Perez reached on an error that allowed Ruiz to score and Cuevas to head to third while Perez advanced to second.
Cuevas was tagged out trying to score on a missed squeeze bunt while Perez advanced to third. Layne then split the left-center gap for an RBI triple to open a 6-0 lead.
However, the Vikings scored four runs in the sixth inning on four hits while Madera also committed three errors to cut Madera’s lead to 6-4.
Dawson allowed a one-out baserunner in the seventh, but Dawson got a lineout to Layne for the second out and a grounder back to her to end the game with a victory.
Sierra Canyon 7, Madera 1
Sierra Canyon took advantage of Madera wildness to score two runs in the third inning, but made the runs hold up for a victory.
Lead-off batter Taylor Brooks led the Coyotes with two hits and scored Madera’s lone run.
Sierra Canyon pitcher Caitlyn Rivera struck out 12 batters and scattered six hits for the victory. Sierra Canyon started the scoring in the third inning. Two singles and two walks led to a 2-0 lead.
Rivera shut out the Coyotes until the sixth inning. Brooks led off the inning with a single up the middle. She stole second and scored on a two-out single by pinch-hitter Heaven Ramirez.
However, four pitches into the next inning, Sierra Canyon got its two-run lead back with a solo home run over the center field fence. The Trailblazers weren’t done. They had four more hits to score four more runs to break open the game with a six-run lead.
Madera put two runners on base in the seventh, but were retired without scoring.
