Vikings Softball beat the Rio Hondo College Roadrunners 14-6 in the Thursday afternoon home game, with Jaela Ruiz making the winning hit.
The first inning began with pitcher Mariah Zapata as she managed to strike out two of the first three Rio Hondo batters, the third managed a hit but was tagged out at first.
During the top of the first inning, the Vikings managed two hits but scored no runs, ending the inning with a score of 0-0.
The game got a lot more interesting in the second inning, with Rio Hondo quickly loading the bases and scoring once by their fourth batter.
Following this, Zapata was swapped out for pitcher Adalise Valenzuela.
In a postgame interview, Valenzuela revealed during the swap she reassured Zapata.
“I got your back, don’t worry about it. We got each other,” she quoted herself saying, demonstrating a sense of camaraderie for her teammates.
Rio Hondo scored three more times by the time they received their third out by the Vikings.
The Vikings bounced back in the top of the second, with every batter making a hit and eight of them making it to home plate, ending the inning with a score of 8-4.
Pitcher Hailey Harris hits the ball in the game on Thursday against Rio Hondo college. (Tenoa J. Stewart)
The third inning saw Rio Hondo earn another run, and the Vikings earned two runs, for a score of 10-5.
The next inning was likewise, with the bottom of the fourth ending with the score 12-6.
However, the scoreboard did not display this as it was experiencing technical difficulties at the time and had to be fixed between the fourth and fifth innings.
The fifth inning saw Rio Hondo score no runs.
Meanwhile, the Vikings scored twice, finishing the game with a 14-6 score.
“It feels great. I really wanted to be in that position for my teammates and I’m just glad I was able to get it done for them,” said infielder Jaela Ruiz, who made the winning hit.
“We just got to continue to pound the strike zone from our pitchers and our hitters got to continue to be disciplined like they were today,” said coach Megan Martinez in an interview regarding improvements.
In the same interview, Martinez made the noteworthy mention that most players of this game were freshmen.
With this win the Vikings’ conference record improves to 4-0 and their overall record to 9-1.