Corban Softball Doubles Down, Sweeps Cal Lutheran
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Corban broke out the bats in a big way on Thursday afternoon in sweeping aside the host Cal Lutheran Regals, 8-4 and 7-5, in non-conference softball action at Hutton Field.
With the wins, the Warriors improve their season record to 11-5 and at the same time drop Cal Lutheran to 8-3. With a pair of games at Hope International looming tomorrow, Corban is now 5-3 on its 10-game road trip to Southern California.
CORBAN 8, CAL LUTHERAN 4 (
Box Score)
It was a double-fest for the Warriors, who had six doubles among their nine hits. On top of that, the hits were evenly spread out with Kyrianna Sorensen collecting a double and single and seven other players getting a hit.
All of the offense came in support of Danielle Horne, who fought through a difficult first inning to earn the pitching victory. Horne, now 2-0 this season, gave up four runs on six singles and a pair of walks in the first inning. After that she scattered five singles while walking just one more batter and striking out four over the final six innings.
The Warriors had given Horne a 2-0 lead in the top of the first when Kylie Durre stroked a two-out, two-run double after a single by Aubrene Blas and double by Sorensen.
It took awhile for Corban to regain the lead, but it finally did with five runs in the sixth before adding the finally tally in the seventh. A two-out error following a double by Breonna Bejaran and walk to Durre allowed one run to score and gave the Warriors an opportunity. They capitalized with a two-run double by Taylor Eilders, a run-scoring single by Dani Ackerman and a RBI double by Annie Owen.
The seventh-inning run came on an error and a two-out RBI double by Courtney Castronovo.
CORBAN 7, CAL LUTHERAN 5 (
Box Score)
This was a game featuring the long ball as Lounette Jackson and Shelby Maurmann both clubbed two-run homers, the first round-tripper of the season for both players.
Corban got on the scoreboard with an unearned run in the top of the second, but Cal Lutheran got five in the bottom of the second, three of them unearned. A costly error combined with a walk and four singles led to the Regals' outburst.
Once again the Warriors rallied with a big inning. In this case it was a six-run fourth inning, highlighted by the two-run homers by Jackson and Maurmann. Blas, Sorensen and Eilders all had singles in the inning and Castronovo had a run-scoring double as well. In fact, all six of Corban's hits in this contest came in the fourth inning.
Like Horne before her, Samantha Gutwig survived a big Cal Lutheran inning and ended up with a complete-game victory. While improving her season record to 3-1, Gutwig allowed the five runs on eight hits while walking four and fanning six.
"Cal Lutheran was a really solid team with good pitching and a very solid lineup offensively," Corban head coach Nathan Ohta said. "They came out in both games and jumped on us early, and their pitching held us in check pretty well in the early part of both games. Our girls did a great job of making in-game adjustments to their pitchers and staying dialed in mentally and were able to come up with the big hits when we needed them.
"Sam and Dani did a great job of rebounding from a couple big innings early, to hold them in check and give our offense a chance to break through," Ohta added. "It says a lot about our team to be able to weather a little adversity early and then come back the way they did today."