St. Joseph\u2019s softball team has been on a roll.<\/p>\n
The Knights have won eight games in a row dating back to the first week of March.<\/p>\n
Their most recent win came on Wednesday with a 9-0 victory over Kingsburg High School at J Chavez Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese girls are really disciplined at the plate,\u201d coach Anthony Razo said. \u201cWhen they get ahead in counts, they don\u2019t chase (pitches out of the zone) and they stay with their approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offense has been no problem for St. Joseph.<\/p>\n
Even prior to Wednesday\u2019s matchup, they have been putting up roughly seven runs per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese girls work really hard and we don\u2019t make it easy,\u201d Razo said. \u201cWe make practice difficult so that the games are easy and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the second inning, the Knights had already taken advantage of loading the bases.<\/p>\n
Shai Valadez and Emily Cervantes singled home runs, while second baseman Annalyssa Cota hit a sacrifice fly to center field. Catcher Vienn Bowker then cleared the bases with a double in the gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed the pitcher was throwing first pitch strikes so I wanted to jump on those pitches early,\u201d said Valadez, who finished 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs. \u201cWe were taught to be aggressive at the plate, and I think it\u2019s working for a lot of us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Knights now holding a 5-0 lead after two innings, Kingsburg tried to find some sort of answer. The Vikings (8-8) even loaded the bases in the top of the third but a strikeout and ground ball ended the inning.<\/p>\n
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Even though St. Joseph pitcher Kali Padilla got out of the third inning jam, Razo didn\u2019t want to overuse any of his players, so he brought in pitcher Angelica Chavez in the fourth inning.<\/p>\n
She was also lights-out, allowing just two base runners in three innings of work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the middle of a really busy week with eight games in six days,\u201d Razo said. \u201cI was trying to do our best to make sure every pitcher came get some innings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chavez was also relieved by freshman Julisa Tovar in the seventh while the Knights had the game under control.<\/p>\n
Senior outfielder Kaycie Gavlak singled home a run in the fourth inning, while Valadez and Makenna Pirnat added two more RBIs in the bottom of the sixth inning to put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps so much that we hop on a team early,\u201d Padilla said. \u201cFrom there, our defense just locks down.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Joseph\u2019s challenging schedule continues this weekend when it travels to the Carew Classic at Canyon High School in Anaheim.<\/p>\n
The tournament features many top softball teams from all over California, including Huntington Beach, Orange Lutheran, Aquinas and Los Alamitos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to see where we stand,\u201d Razo said about the Carew Classic. \u201cThere are going to be a lot of tough softball powerhouses there.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Joseph (11-2-1, 6-0 Mountain) also played Lompoc in the second of a three-game season series on Wednesday but results were not available at press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Joseph\u2019s softball team has been on a roll. The Knights have won eight games in a row…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,2336,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,2330,2333,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2320,2321,1210,185,2324,2338,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-658891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-ball-games","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-baseball-competitions","13":"tag-baseball-events","14":"tag-baseball-finals","15":"tag-baseball-games","16":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","17":"tag-baseball-teams","18":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","19":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","20":"tag-major-league-baseball","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","24":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","26":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","27":"tag-mlb","28":"tag-mlb-playoffs","29":"tag-mlb-postseason","30":"tag-outdoor-sports","31":"tag-pitcher","32":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","33":"tag-softball","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-sports-events","36":"tag-team-activities","37":"tag-team-sports","38":"tag-turf-sports","39":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}