Bobcats fall to Dons

Zdenêk Pergl | Flickr Commons

The Bobcat’s bats couldn’t string together enough hits to match the Dons offensive output.

Coming off a recent loss to Fullerton, Saddleback Bobcat’s women’s softball team was looking to bounce back and get the win at home against the Santa Ana Dons on Tuesday, March 16. But with minimal hits, the Dons took the win 11-2, dropping the Bobcats to an overall 6-12 record on the season.

“It was very disappointing to lose this way, but all we can do is pick ourselves back up and get back to work,” said Annie Thibert, the Bobcat’s sophomore center fielder.

Emily Rosas, the Dons’ sophomore pitcher, came into the game with an 18-3 record and a .92 era, and has been off to an impressive start this season. Continuing her control off the mound, Rosas faced 13 batters and struck out four, resulting in Rosas being awarded the win against Saddleback.

“Coming into today’s game, we knew that the pitching we were going to face was good,” said Thibert, who went 1-2 with a walk against Rosas.

With the game tied 0-0 going into the second inning, the Dons capitalized on three Bobcat errors resulting in 2 runs and that was just the beginning. Racking up a total of 12 runs compared to Saddleback’s four, Dons’ hitters were on fire.

Scoring at least one run in each inning after that, the Dons kept the Bobcats off the scoreboard until the bottom of the fifth inning when Mikayla Mattocks doubled to left field, scoring Desiree McGruder who had singled up the middle earlier in the inning.

Giving up three more runs in the top of the sixth inning, the Bobcat’s knew they needed to come out with hot bats and get some runs on the scoreboard. After Kianna Gutierrez grounded out to the third baseman for the first out of the inning, Anne Thibert came to the plate and hit a double to right field and later scored the Bobcat’s second run of the game when Emma Estep, Saddleback’s sophomore third baseman, singled to left field.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the Bobcat’s scoring as two of the next three batters grounded out to the Dons’ third baseman stranding an additional runner on base. With this runner and two others left on base, the Bobcat’s were not able to able get the win.

“Tough losses like this are going to happen, but at the end of the day it’s only making us better and that’s what really matters,” said Emma Estep, the Bobcat’s sophomore third baseman, after the team was not able to capitalize on the few hits the team had.

Defensively, Santa Ana was solid and stood strong having no errors whereas Saddleback had a combined six errors in a few different innings. Unfortunately, due to the number of errors committed, the Bobcats not being able to assemble enough hits or runs, the game was ended after the sixth inning.

According to California Community College Athletic Association’s Scoreboard, the Bobcat’s are ranked sixth in their conference with a conference record of 2-6, the Bobcats have a lot of season ahead of them. With the team as a whole having a batting average of .269, an on base percentage of .339, seven doubles, two triples and two homeruns, the Bobcats have time and the means to move up the rankings in their conference.

“We are young team with a bunch of unique pieces and once we figure out how to make all the pieces come together,” said Katie Schmidt, Saddleback’s freshman pitcher. “I believe this team can be special.”

The Bobcats have multiple games over the next few weeks and would appreciate if you would come out and cheer them on.

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