Yucaipa gives Upland an English lesson
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."
English (12-5), who finished with nine strikeouts, induced consecutive pop-ups with runners on second and third in the sixth inning to end Upland's best scoring opportunity.
The fifth inning looked potentially promising for Upland (20-7) when Caitlyn Hughes reached with a leadoff single, but English picked her off with the help of a play designed to bring the second baseman behind the runner to make the tag at first.
Upland spent the first four innings building to that point after Yucaipa dropped them in
a 2-0 hole.
Upland's first and second basemen couldn't handle sharply hit first-inning ground balls by Yucaipa's Ali Reykdal and Megan Allen, respectively. Reykdal, who was sacrificed to second, scored on the second error before Allen came home on an RBI single by Payton Wood.
"I think the difference in the game was that we came out hitting the ball hard and they weren't ready for it," Yucaipa coach David Kivett said. "Our plan was to hit the ball hard and make their defense work. And we did."
After the lone Yucaipa hit in the first, Upland's Whitney Jones allowed just four more over six shutout innings. The hard-throwing junior allowed just one Yucaipa runner past second base after the first inning.
She finished with two walks, five strikeouts and no earned runs.
"Twenty out of 21 times they make those plays," DeJournett said of the Upland errors. "I'm not crying over those mistakes but we don't let them score two unearned runs and it's still a 0-0 ball game."
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