It was an all Chargers afternoon on Tuesday as the Wilcox Chargers played host to the Leland Chargers on the softball diamond. Leland wasted no time getting on the board by dropping a three spot in the top of the first.
Wilcox starting pitcher Tyler Scott settled in nicely and kept the visiting Chargers off the scoreboard with a three-up, three-down second. That allowed Wilcox to cut into the lead in the bottom half of the second.
Junior Melody Bouldt led off with a bunt single and advanced to second on a sacrifice by Makaila Butler. Bouldt would impressively come around to score all the way from second on a ground ball to shortstop that never left the infield. With the impressive speed, Bouldt slid just under the tag to get the home Chargers in the run column.
“Automatically, I pick up my coach, and I hear her voice and go for it [when I get the green light],” chimed Bouldt on advancing 120 feet on a groundout. “She was waving me home, so I just ran hard.”
“She’s a team leader and does whatever it takes to score, to get on base,” praised Scott on her teammate. “She’s just overall a good softball player.”
Unfortunately for Wilcox fans, that would be as close as their Chargers would get in this game. Leland’s big inning came in its next ups as Leland dropped a big crooked number, scoring seven times in the third.
However, for most of the game outside of that third inning, the score was only 4-2. Lauren Rodriguez came in to relieve Scott and did an admirable job throwing strikes. Eventually in the seventh, an error allowed Leland to tack on three more runs for a 14-2 final. It did not feel as lopsided of a game as the final score would indicate.
“It was just this inning,” chimed Wilcox Head Coach Mark Gutierrez while pointing to his scorebook at the third inning. “It came down to errors and base on balls. That’s how it goes.”
Wilcox did graduate eight seniors from last year’s team and are facing an uphill battle this season, filling in big shoes left behind. That said, the pieces seem to be there for the team to gel as the season moves forward.
In addition to Bouldt’s impressive speed on the bases, Scott smoked a line-drive RBI single in the bottom of the third, knocking home Brooke Rivera who had doubled in front of her.
Furthermore, arguably the most impressive at bat of the game came from Jesika Souza in the fifth. After a double by Scott, Souza worked a full-count walk after fouling off a hard fastball straight back to the backstop. Souza had the pitcher timed and eventually took a close pitch for a well-earned base on balls.
Coach Gutierrez agreed that his team has loads of potential and echoed that the loss was mostly just due to just a couple of errors.
“Honestly it was just key errors that hurt us. First inning error and three runs score. Without that we are out of the inning with no runs,” said Gutierrez. “An error in the inning with seven runs scored hurt and even in this last inning we should have been out of it with no runs scored and instead give up three on an error.”
Wilcox will look to get back on track when the Chargers host Leigh on Thursday, March 7.