Atwater’s Mahy gets upper hand in pitchers’ duel against Golden Valley

Cheyenne Mahy and Marissa Bertuccio spent Tuesday evening working together.

Two of Merced County’s top softball hurlers shared a pitching lesson, pushing one another and exchanging friendly banter about Wednesday night’s impending showdown at Joe Herb Park. That friendly rivalry extended to the field with Atwater and Golden Valley aces matching each other pitch for pitch.

With baserunners almost nonexistent and very little hard contact, it became clear the game was likely going to be decided by whichever defense blinked first. Unfortunately for Bertuccio, it was the Cougars in the fifth inning. GV extended the inning with a pair of fielding errors and a poor execution on a fielder’s choice as the Falcons struck for three runs.

It was all the offense Mahy would need as she tossed a two-hit shutout and Atwater defeated the Cougars 4-0.

The win gives the Falcons (10-6, 6-3 Central California Conference) a two-game edge over GV (7-12, 4-5) for second place in the league.

“It is kind of funny because Marissa and I were working together last night,” Mahy said. “I saw right away that she was on, so it fired me up a little bit that I needed to bring it, too.

“I think it made us both step up our game, and that made for more excitement.”

Bertuccio yielded just two hits and allowed just three base runners through the first four innings, but a one-out error opened the door for the Atwater rally in the fifth.

The freshman right-hander responded with a strikeout and looked to be out of the inning with a ground ball to short. With the ball pretty deep in the hole, Cougars shortstop Maddie Martinez decided to try and cut down the lead runner. Her throw to third wasn’t in time and the Falcons ended up with runners on second and third, thanks to aggressive baserunning by Melanie Valencia.

Bertuccio still should have escaped the inning unscathed, but a throwing error bounced under the glove of first baseman Abbee Croninger, allowing two runs to score. Mahy (2 for 4, two RBIs) tripled home a third run on the very next pitch to make it 3-0.

“Three has been the magic number for us,” Atwater coach Robert Santistevan said. “We don’t want to be content with that, but we haven’t lost a game where we’ve been able to score three runs. This game was all about which team wanted it more. We found a way to get some kids on and we took advantage of it.”

Golden Valley never threatened to get back into it. The Cougars only got four runners on base in the game and never got a runner past second.

Mahy finished with seven strikeouts and put the game away with a run-scoring single in the seventh.

“I don’t think we came in intimidated,” GV coach Ross Cruickshanks said. “We put a lot of balls in play, we just didn’t hit many of them very hard. We needed to put more pressure on their defense. They just had too many routine fielding plays.

“The old adage is errors always come back to cost you. It certainly did tonight.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 10:55 PM with the headline "Atwater’s Mahy gets upper hand in pitchers’ duel against Golden Valley."