Pacheco rides big arm and small ball to rivalry win

Charlie Pikas said there haven’t been many total team efforts from the Pacheco softball team.

The Panthers have shown offensive promise in spurts but have primarily relied on the power right arm of senior pitcher Gia Rodoni through the first half of the season.

He hopes Thursday afternoon’s 2-0 victory over rival Los Banos is a step in the right direction.

Pacheco didn’t tear the cover off of the ball against Tigers ace Brianna Flores but got steady contribution and – perhaps more importantly – execution throughout the lineup. It kept a steady stream of pressure on the Los Banos defense and helped manufacture the game’s only runs.

“We know we’re blessed to have Gia in the circle and that if we can push across a run or two early it makes things very difficult for the other team,” Pikas said. “Today was probably the best team effort we had in terms of execution that I can remember. Everybody seemed to do their part when their opportunity came, and it was ultimately the difference in a tight game.”

Both teams entered the game undefeated in the Western Athletic Conference, and both seemed to understand runs would be at a premium as stolen base attempts and sacrifice bunts were used early and often.

Pacheco (8-9, 5-0 WAC) routinely did the better job with its small ball. The Panthers got runners on and into scoring position in six of the seven innings.

Los Banos (6-10, 4-1 WAC) used solid pitching from Flores and some stellar defense, including left fielder Kailyn Neves twice gunning down runners at the plate, to sidestep a lot of the trouble.

Pacheco broke the deadlock in the third inning when a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt attempt gave it runners at the corners and one out. Rodoni ripped a sacrifice fly to right field to make it 1-0.

Fresh off a big come-from-behind victory, the Tigers struggled to get anything going against Rodoni. The few base runners they got were squandered with failed stolen base attempts or botched bunts.

“There’s no doubt they did a better job executing today,” Los Banos coach Dustin Caropreso said. “We got plenty of opportunities with kids on and no one out or one out. We got backdoored twice on failed bunts. We got thrown out on bad jumps from first.

“Runs against a good pitcher like that are tough to come by, and we didn’t do enough to produce them today.”

Los Banos’ best scoring chance came with two out in the sixth inning when second baseman Hailey Quintana looped a double over a drawn-in outfield. She moved to third on a wild pitch, but Rodoni responded with a strikeout to end the inning.

“It’s my job to get my team out of the situations I put them in,” said Rodoni, who has allowed just two hits in her past four starts. “It helps that I’ve been in a lot of close games like this, so I don’t really get caught up in the emotions and can just focus on making good pitches for my team.”

The Panthers put the game away in the next half inning, quickly loading the bases with two singles and a walk. Adrianna Tomasetti (2 for 3) singled in Jazzy Yruegas with a big insurance run to seal the victory.

This story was originally published March 26, 2015 at 9:35 PM with the headline "Pacheco rides big arm and small ball to rivalry win."