On Saturday, the Goddard Lady Rockets softball team hosted the Clovis Lady Cats for a softball regular season doubleheader. This was also senior day, with the Lady Rockets honoring players Quiana Gonzales (7), Marisol Hernandez (14), Lindsay Campa (24) and Marisa Crawford (30).

Goddard entered the doubleheader with a 7-8 record and were coming off a doubleheader against Española Valley, where the Lady Rockets won both games with tallies of 12-2 and 12-0 on March 28. The Lady Cats entered with a 3-6 record. Clovis last played in the Lindsey Callaway Tournament in Dexter two weeks ago. The Lady Cats lost to Raton 13-3 in the first round, but bounced back to beat both Hatch Valley 21-11 and Tularosa 16-6 to take the consolation championship.

In game one, Goddard dominated. They scored in all innings of play, while holding Clovis to no runs. Most of the Lady Rockets’ runs came in the third inning, with seven after scoring two in the first and five in the second.

This put the tally at 14-0 entering the fourth quarter, and Goddard had a chance to end the game via the mercy rule. In softball, the mercy rule happens when a team has a 15-run lead by the third inning or later or a 10-run lead by the fifth inning or later. If that happens, and the other team can’t score any more runs in the inning, the game ends. After again holding the Lady Cats to no runs at the top of the inning, the Lady Rockets scored the one run they needed to end the game in the bottom of the fourth with a 15-0 tally.

Goddard had 11 hits in total, while Clovis only had two. That was due to pitcher Juliet Gallegos (1), who pitched all four innings for the Lady Rockets, and along with the two hits and no runs given up, she struck out five batters. Pitchers Jazlynn Chavez-Marin (10) and Isabella Sotelo (13) were on the mound for the Lady Cats.

Four different Goddard hitters led the team with hits, with two hits, while Jorelianis Guzman (17) led the team in RBIs, the number of runners a batter is responsible for scoring, with four. The two hits for Clovis came from two different players.

In game two, the Lady Rockets shot out to a 5-0 lead after the end of the first inning, but the offenses slowed down for the next two innings, with the lone run coming from Goddard in the third to make the score 6-0.

The Lady Cats scored their first runs of the doubleheader in the top of the fifth inning with three, but the Lady Rockets responded at the bottom of the inning with four of their own to make the score 10-3 entering the fifth inning.

Despite Clovis scoring one run in the top of the fifth, Goddard again scored four runs, bringing the score to 14-4 and ending the game via the mercy rule. The doubleheader sweep improved the Lady Rockets’ record to 9-8, while the Lady Cats fell to 3-8.

In game two, Crawford (30) led Goddard in both hits, three, and RBIs, five, while Campa (24) had a triple. Clovis had six hits that came from six different players. Amiah Herrera (8) was the pitcher for the Lady Rockets, and pitched five innings, struck out four batters and allowed six hits and four runs. Chavez-Marin (10) pitched this game for the Lady Cats after only pitching 0.2 innings in game one.

Goddard begins District 4-4A play on April 14 when they travel to face Artesia at 5 p.m. Clovis has three games this week — a doubleheader at Portales tonight and a home game against Lovington on Thursday — before they begin District 4-5A action on April 14 with a doubleheader at home against Carlsbad at 4:30 p.m.

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