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Pasadena softball suffered a huge 12-4 loss against East Los Angeles College (ELAC) on Tuesday at Robinson Park but had an impressive 15-0 victory over El Camino College-Compton Center (ECC-C) on the road Thursday afternoon.

ELAC took an early lead over Pasadena, scoring seven runs in the second inning and shutting out the Lancers until the third but not after increasing their lead, 12-1.

“After they scored the runs that they scored, I felt like our team felt deflated,” head coach Monica Tantlinger said. “When momentum is created by another team … those balls are going to fall in for them.”

Pasadena went through four pitchers before they could manage to stop ELAC’s scoring spree. Alyssa Madrid faced the most batters of any of her teammates but wasn’t able to strike out a single one.

“Mentally I was there, but I felt like my team wasn’t there with me,” Madrid said. “There were times when they did get a hit off of me, but just little by little, the errors ate us up.”

The Lancers had only one recorded error for the game but their defensive performance was far from exceptional. Sophomore catcher Holly Riker-Sloan was especially concerned with the way her defense played against ELAC.

“Not making routine plays, letting balls go between our legs, letting them drop right in front of us – at a collegiate level you just can’t let that happen,” Riker-Sloan said. “Those are supposed to be the plays you have to make. You don’t have a choice. Those are things you should be able to do day in and day out and it didn’t happen.”

Pasadena came out against ECC-C eager to prove they are a playoff team, gaining an eight-run lead before the fourth inning.

ECC-C is a team the Lancers have become accustomed to blowing out, with their smallest margin of victory being nine runs.

Pasadena regained their composure on the defensive front, ending with no errors in the game against ECCC and limiting them to only four hits.

“Our pitching set the tone and did a great job giving us an opportunity to provide some run support while shutting down Compton’s hitters,” Tantlinger said. “We worked our gameplan and made sure to trust the process. We seemed to be in control the entire game.”

The Lancers’ bats were firing on all cylinders finishing with 17 hits in their 15 runs to end the game in the fifth inning.

Pasadena’s Karen Najera ended up hitting two triples against ECC-C resulting in two RBIs.

“I was able to adjust to the slower pitching and attack my pitch as soon as it was delivered. I thought about hitting hard ground balls and the triples were the result,” Najera said. “After the first two innings we knew we had to make an adjustment at the plate and get timely hits. We worked the process and worked base to base.”

With this win against ECC-C, the Lancers put an end to a three-game losing streak and they hope to continue the momentum from their victory for the remainder of the season.

“We all know that we can win. We just have to believe it,” Riker-Sloan said. “Not only for us to believe it but we need to show everyone else. We are a force to be reckoned with.”

Daniel Larson
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