The Paly varsity girls’ softball team trounced Gunn Wednesday afternoon, 10-0, continuing the dominance it has shown so far this season.
As the score suggests, the game showcased Paly’s offensive capabilities: the Vikings scored seven runs in the bottom of the first inning.
Assistant coach Adam Yonkers attributed the explosive early scoring to the players’ attitude going into the game.
“I just said to the girls that in the first inning what we haven’t done over the last couple of years is really come out swinging our bats,” Yonkers said. “We’ve been getting on them [the players] to get the tone set the first inning, so I was really pleased. That really sends a message.”
In the bottom of the third inning, Paly once again exhibited its ability to score. Senior catcher Allie Coleman led off the inning with a triple to deep left-centerfield, and then scored on junior pitcher Kelly Jenks’ sacrifice fly.
The scoring, however, did not stop there. With two outs — the batter who followed Jenks grounded out — freshman first baseman Caitlin Tirador singled, and senior outfielder Pam Wong hit a hard grounder to the Gunn shortshop, who was unable to hold on to the ball and thus allowed both runners to reach base. Then, sophomore second baseman Gracie Marshall knocked a little centerfield flare that dropped for a single, falling too quickly for any Gunn player to make the catch, and scored both Tirador and Wong. The next batter grounded out to end the inning.
According to Coleman, the Vikings’ offense worked just as the team had hoped it would.
“We [Paly] really wanted to be aggressive and get on them early, which we did,” Coleman said. “[We wanted to] not have any passive mistakes.”
Even with such a display, Paly’s offense was not the only impressive aspect of the Vikings’ performance: Jenks’ pitching was all but untouchable. Though Jenks occasionally went deep into the count with Gunn batters, she was always able to get out of trouble and did not allow Gunn a single serious scoring opportunity.
Since Paly was already ahead by 10 runs at the end of Gunn’s half of the fifth inning, the game was cut short, in accordance with high school softball’s 10-run rule. A normal softball game is seven innings long.
Paly’s next game will be against the Homestead Mustangs at Mission College on Friday, April 10. Paly narrowly defeated Homestead, 7-6, earlier in the season.