Kaitlyn Post went 3-4 with three straight doubles in Tuesday's softball opener and Jenna Rorick turned in two solid pitching performances to guide College of the Canyons to a doubleheader sweep of SBCC at Pershing Park. The scores were 8-1 and 10-2 in six innings.
The Cougars (11-3) had 15 hits in the two games and and 10 went for extra bases, including eight doubles. The Vaqueros, who've played 10 of their first 12 at home, fell to 3-9.
Rorick (6-2) pitched all seven innings of the opener, holding the Vaqueros to one run on four hits with three strikeouts and three walks. She came on in relief of Rebecca Rodarte with the Vaqueros winning 2-1 and a runner on second with one out in the fourth. She got out of it on a sacrifice bunt and a groundout to short.
Canyons proceeded to pile up seven runs in the fifth on four hits, a walk, two hit-by-pitches and two errors. That gave the visitors an 8-2 lead after 4 1/2 innings. Rorick had two doubles at the plate, driving in the last two runs on a double to right-center with two outs in the sixth. That stretched the lead to eight runs, 10-2, and set the stage for the mercy rule (ahead by eight or more runs after five or six innings) for the Cougars to win it in six innings.
Lauren Del Campo went 2-for-3 with an RBI double in the third inning of the first game. Leadoff hitter Madison Foster scored two of the Vaqueros' three runs and doubled in the third inning of Game 2.
"We came out with good energy but once we got to like the fourth and fifth inning, we just kind of drained out and lost the spark that we had initially," said Foster, a sophomore infielder from Fredrick, Colo. "It's been hard for us to complete a game.
"We were up 2-1 in the second game, then they had that big inning and it shifted the momentum in the wrong direction. It just kind of tanked and snowballed on top of each other. We need to focus on our energy level and helping each other out instead of focusing on our individual selves. When you're not having your best game, you can still help someone else have their best game."
Canyons took a 2-0 lead in the opener on an RBI single by Makayla Lopez in the first and an RBI double by Chisato Kawahara in the second. The Vaqueros got on the board in the third when Foster singled up the middle and scored from first on a double by Del Campo.
The Cougars put the game away with six runs in their last three at-bats. The Vaqueros only had four hits in each game.
"We've been talking about the urgency and needing to get the job done sooner," said third-year coach Justine Bosio. "Canyons is a good team (they brought a .331 team batting average into the DH) and we didn't really show up offensively the way I had hoped we would.
"Carson Dunckley was pitching well in the second game, then she had a tough fifth inning."
Dunckley only allowed one run on one hit in the first four innings.
The Vaqueros will play nine of their next 12 on the road. They'll play two games on Saturday at Orange Coast, taking on the Pirates at 11 a.m. and Grossmont at 1 p.m.
