Fielding the vibes
The Moorpark College Raiders outscored the Santa Monica Corsairs 16-0, despite most of their runs coming from errors on Tuesday, March 10 at the John Adams Middle School field. Although it was a loss, SMC coaches and players agreed they gained a positive experience after the game.
“Have fun, we know what we’re doing,” said assistant coach Fabiola González at the start of the first inning. The energy was high, but the challenge was maintaining that energy for the entire five innings.
The Corsairs were led by pitchers Cadence Pursell, Katrina “Huracán” Olmedo and catcher Meredian “Mimi” Cordova.
Moorpark’s designated player, Alyssa Morales, hit a home run off Pursell in the first inning. That didn’t keep SMC from backing up its defense in the following innings.
In the top of the third, Cordova caught Lily Kougher trying to steal third and threw the ball to Olmedo at third base. Thanks to Olmedo’s quick thinking, she threw the ball to Santos, getting the runner into a pickle. Santos then made the throw back to Olmedo, who tagged the runner, securing the out to end the first half of the inning.
“They basically threw it to me because the runner was gonna come to third, so then I caught it and got her in a pickle and got her out,” said Olmedo, who started on third base.
Two and a half innings into the game, Moorpark led 7-0.
The Corsairs got on base and stayed alert, leading off safely to advance. All that was needed were the hits to score runs.
Moorpark repeatedly loaded the bases throughout the game. Umpires advanced the runners several bases at a time due to balls in play going out of bounds. SMC’s defense hustled to catch pop flies, make double plays, and support Pursell and Cordova in making outs to move the game along.
Centerfielder Jodi Shuler had a noteworthy presence after colliding into the fence twice while trying to catch Moorpark home runs in the top of the fourth and fifth innings.
At the top of the fifth, the Corsairs were still down 9-0. After a three-run homerun bringing in Morgan Casillas, Riley Furnace and Kailey Green in the fifth, assistant coach González and head coach Christine Druckman called for a pitching change and brought in Olmedo. Moorpark once again loaded the bases, and Danielle Shinko singled to left, bringing in unearned runs from Samantha Salazar and Aryanne Munoz to bring the score to 16-0.
At the bottom of the fifth, Moorpack switched pitchers, bringing in Keira McLucas to close the game out. Shuler singled to shortstop, Pursell walked, Dayanara “Daya” Velazquez grounded out to shortstop, moving up Shuler and Pursell.
Yoselin “Yoshi” Hernandez and Santos also had at bats in the fifth, both made contact and were the final two outs of the game.
Shuler advanced to third by the end of the inning but the Corsairs were unable to get the hits needed to get Shuler home and score, ending the game. Moorpark closed out the game 16-0.
Beyond the statistics of the game, the team says it was the vibes on the field and camaraderie among the group that made the experience rewarding.
“These ladies empower each other. They learn to be there for each other and they don’t belittle each other,” said González. “If they’re down, they take a moment to hear them out, but then they take softball as therapy. It’s just the best team that I’ve had in a long time.”
According to González, the Corsairs are a tight group, supporting each other academically and personally on and off the field. Not all players who were originally on the roster at the start of the season were able to play this year due to personal reasons.
Currently, the Corsairs are a 10-woman crew. Although small in number, González and Druckman expect big energy from the team.
“The bottom line is they’re too scared to run on you. That’s what we want, because you were trying to pick them off,” said coach Druckman during their postgame huddle. “Daya did a great job covering there. Ev did a nice job crashing on that ball when it went past, that saved another base.Good job all around.”
Druckman also gave kudos to the team's offensive efforts, including Olmedo, who hit a hard ball down the middle that earned her a single. The team’s success included left fielder Velazquez, who moved Shuler and Pursell up a base in the fifth.
“The game plan was to give it our all. There were a few errors overall, we did give it all our best. It’s a loss, but it’s okay,” said Velazquez. “We’re a little bit behind schedule, we got rained out, so we’re a little behind, but we still go out there and have fun.”
SMC has played fewer games than most of their opponents, and Velazquez said that with more experience, she believes they can tighten up their offense.
“We already knew going into the game that Moorpark was a tough team to beat. No matter what the score was, we tried our best and played hard,” said Olmedo. The team plans to bring that same energy to the following game.
The secret ingredient for Thursday’s upcoming game: eat beforehand. The players reported during their huddle that not everyone ate a good enough meal prior to the game. After all, softball is equally a mentally and physically demanding sport.
“Some of us girls don’t eat before the game because we get nervous. That was me today, I didn’t eat. One of the girls gave me a PB&J, I was like thank God I need it,” said Velazquez.
Olmedo was the player of the game and was responsible for deciding where they will go to eat before the team faced Santa Barbara City College on March 12. They lost 16 - 8 via mercy rule, to Santa Barbara’s Vaqueros. The progress continued as the team managed to score 8 runs.
The Corsairs will be away the next two games before returning to John Adams Middle School March 24 to play Allan Hancock College at 2 p.m.