Gilroy falls to 3-4 in league play in their 23-3 loss to Notre Dame in five innings Thursday evening.
The Spirit practically put the game away in the first inning scoring 13 runs.
“Notre Dame came out swinging hard and put the ball in play and put the ball in play hard right away,” Gilroy coach Bria DeLorenzo said.
Gilroy faced an up-hill challenge off the gate as Notre Dame took an early 2-0 lead and had the bases loaded with no outs.
Mustang pitcher Abby Clark got a popup and a ground ball that seemed to limit the damage to three runs, but the evasive final out came after another 10 batters.
The Spirit worked seven walks off Clark and Savannah Castro, the starting pitcher, in the first inning.
“You can’t defend walks,” coach DeLorenzo said. “And then they just kept putting the ball in play, getting base hits so it just kept adding on.”
Castro faced four batters in the first inning, seven in the third and seven in the fourth while Clark pitched to 13 batters in the first, eight in the second, three in the third and three in the fifth.
Gilroy’s fielding errors, wild pitches, passed balls and throwing errors allowed the Spirit to extend innings and their lead scoring three, five and two runs in the next three innings.
“It wasn’t super clean and when you’re going up against a team with strength that Notre Dame has we have to make sure we are playing clean the whole time,” coach DeLorenzo said.
Gilroy’s offense finally showed signs of life in the fourth inning. They managed to string together back-to-back-to-back doubles that put two runs on the board. Castro followed the doubles with a single to get the Mustangs’ final run.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a 23 to nothing ballgame or it’s a one to nothing ball game,” coach DeLorenzo said. “We’re going to fight until the end, we are going to show that heart until the end and we have the ball players that show that.”
The Mustangs indeed showed heart and fight from first at-bat with Makenna Weiler working a single to left field, but a double play ball slowed their rally. Liezl Clark tried to get the offense going again with an infield single. Spirit’s pitcher got the next batter to fly out to center field to end the inning.
Despite the lopsided score, the Mustangs saw the game as an opportunity to correct the mistakes they committed throughout the game.
“I think we are going to make our defense stronger and we are going to have our offense kick in and we are going to win some games,” Clark said.
