St. Lucy's Softball Pulls Out Win Over Charter Oak, Glendora Rebounds From Loss to Upland

After giving up a 3-0 lead late in the game, the St. Lucy Priory softball team held on for a 5-3 extra inning home win against Charter Oak on a walk-off home run off the bat of junior Laura Swan in the bottom of the 9th on Saturday afternoon.

St Lucy’s junior pitcher Danielle O’Toole recorded 12 strike outs and enjoyed a 3-0 cushion through six innings before the visiting Chargers (10-10, 3-7) evened the score with a big 7th inning where they got three runs on three hits.

O’Toole helped get St. Lucy’s (9-9, 4-6) out of jams in the 8th and 9th  innings as she recorded a pair of strike outs each time out for the Regents.

With runners on second and third and one out, the Chargers’ Heather Ramirez and Monique Villasenor fell victim to O’Toole’s effective pitching, then again in the Charter Oak 9th, when the Chargers threatened with a runner on first and no outs.

This time, O’Toole fanned Nicki Sprague, Jennifer Gonzalez was thrown out at first base, and Samantha Valadez struck out for the final out to end the Charter Oak rally.

In the bottom of the ninth, St Lucy’s junior Brandi Harkness, who came into the game with a .462 slugging percentage and 4 runs and 2 R.B.I.’s, slapped a single down the first base line to lead off the inning. Swan then belted a long ball that sailed over the Charter Oak outfielders and landed in the overhead shrubbery to immediately end the game in dramatic fashion to the delight of the home fans.

“I'm thrilled with the win, obviously it's always exciting to get a walk off win like that in extra innings,” said Regents head coach Ryan Nuveman following the game, “We hit the ball pretty well from the middle to the end of the game, we started off a little rushed, trying to be a little bit too picky offensively, I would say too choosy on our strike zones, but then we started swinging the bats like we've been the last two weeks.”

 Nuveman said his team pitched well and played very good defense and that resulted in their first League win since beating the South Hills Huskies earlier in the month.

“We had a couple of shaky innings there defensively, but I would chuck that mostly up to them hitting the ball.”

Nuveman praised his pitcher’s performance. “She pitched a great game. She pitched a very good nine innings,” he said.

“We had runners on second and third with less than two outs a couple of times and ran ourselves out of an inning one time, another time we just couldn't get the hits to push across the runs, so it was a two sided deal with two very well  matched teams that played an exciting game. It was not an error free game, but close to it.”

 Glendora drops a close one 2-1 to the visiting Upland Highlanders

 In other softball action throughout the region, the Glendora softball team hit a mid-week bump in the road in their quest to keep pace with Baseline League leading Etiwanda by losing to Upland 2-1 on Wednesday afternoon in a make-up game moved from earlier in the week because of rain.

The Highlanders (9-5, 5-4) broke a 1-1 tie against the Tartans (12-7, 5-4) with three hits and took advantage of a Glendora fielding error in the top of the 6th inning to take the lead for good.

Glendora senior pitcher Carly Argyle pitched a complete game and gave up only four hits while striking out four prior to the Highlander’s tie-breaking 6th, but she got very little offensive help from her teammates in the one run loss.

“Upland High School played very well, they battled back and got the hits that they needed to at the end. We didn’t hit, but I thought we played pretty good defense today and I thought we pitched well enough to win,” said Tartans coach Reese Mitchell.

“It’s really disappointing because it’s a good league and on any given day, anybody can beat anybody else, it’s pretty tight but we gotta score some more runs and we’re just not doing it.”

Even though the Tartans lost to the rival Highlanders Wednesday, they rebounded the following day with a 5-4 win over Alta Loma, avenging a 5-3 loss to the Braves the week before and getting back in the Baseline standings behind Etiwanda.

Up next for the Regents is another game against the Chargers, at Charter Oak on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. The Tartans have a rematch with Upland on the same day at Greenbelt Park North Field.