Results tagged “Yucaipa High School Thunderbirds Softball” from Yucaipa Now

Yucaipa finished its run in the CIF Southern Section Division II Playoffs with a 6-2 loss to visiting Vista Murrieta on Thursday. The Lady Thunderbirds finish their season with a 23-9 overall record, and as the second place team in the Citrus Belt League with a 11-3 record.
Photos By Bob Otto / Staff Photographer

J.P. Hoornstra, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/29/2009 12:17:25 AM PDT

YUCAIPA - The best season for softball that anyone seems to remember at Yucaipa High could have been over after one at-bat Thursday.

Vista Murrieta's leadoff batter, Alexis Villamor, wasted no time introducing herself to Thunderbirds pitcher Jessica English by sending a pitch over the right-field fence.

Unfazed, English settled down and kept her team in the game until the end - longer than expected, but not long enough - in an error-plagued 6-2 loss to the Broncos.

"I know my team can score runs," English said. "I thought we were going to come back and score five runs in the seventh inning."

Senior, Jessica English pitched one of her finest games of the softball season in holding Upland to three hits, along with nine strikeouts, and no walks in the Thunderbirds 2-0 victory, Tuesday, at Upland. The win raises English's record to 12-5.
File Photo / Bob Otto

By Clay Fowler, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/26/2009 11:38:41 PM PDT

UPLAND - Despite the box score semantics, Yucaipa High School's softball team earned a trip to the CIF-SS Division II quarterfinals Tuesday afternoon.

Two unearned runs in the top of the first inning represented the only scoring in the Thunderbirds' 2-0 second-round victory over Upland that propelled Yucaipa to a quarterfinal meeting with the winner of No. 1 seed Vista Murrieta and Moreno Valley Valley View.

Yucaipa (23-8), the second-place team in the Citrus Belt League, took advantage of Upland fielding errors on the second and fourth batters of the game. Pitcher Jessica English took it from there.

The senior scattered five hits over seven shutout innings, squashing threats in the fifth and sixth innings to knock out an Upland team that finished second in the Baseline League to No. 2 seed Etiwanda.

"It's a bad way to lose," Upland coach Bubba DeJournett said. "But we can't say much because we didn't score either."