Rustlers Sink The Pirates

Huntington Beach, Calif. - Hosting district rival Orange Coast College, the Golden West softball team came out on top with a 5-4 victory scoring the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning on Wednesday, February 22. With the win, the Rustlers improved to 4-7 on the year and 2-1 in conference play while Orange Coast dropped to 4-10 overall and 0-2 in conference.

Falling behind early to the Pirates, the Rustlers gave up a run in the first inning of play to find themselves down before they could get their bearings straight.

In the first, a single and a stolen base by OCC's Lujan and an error by GWC's catcher Megan Atkinson put the Pirates in scoring position, but it wasn't until Blanco's single that drove in the Pirates only run of the inning.

An inning later, it was a two run home-run from Liz Lindhart who drove home Heather Grif as the Rustlers took the lead 2-1. Orange Coast would end up matching the Rustlers second inning with a two run top of the 3rd to regain the lead. The Pirates weren't done yet, as they added one more in the top of the 4th inning to increase the lead to 2-4.

Despite the three run turn around, the Rustlers struck back in the bottom of the 4th with a triple by Ciera Henson and ended up scoring on a pass ball to bring the Rustlers back within one. Holding OCC scoreless for the rest of the game, Golden West continued to chip away as the Rustlers tied the Pirates in the bottoms of the 5th inning when Cori O'Donoghue's solo home run brought life to the Rustler's bench. However, in the end, it was the team effort earned the win: Tanya Dowler's single, followed by a single by Cori O'Donoghue sending Dowler to second, and Megan Atkins doubled driving in the winning run, 5-4.

The Rustlers travel to Santiago Canyon for anther conference matchup that will start at 2:00pm on February 24.