It was the bottom of the eighth inning with no outs and Glendale (5-8 division, 7-22 overall) was down 5-1 to L.A. Valley. Valley was looking toward an easy three outs and a victory, but Vaqueros women’s softball dealt them a big surprise.

Starting Pitcher Vanessa Lira started off the run with a walk. Carmen Vivano got a single and with a wild thrown to first base put Lira and Vivano on second and third base.

Casondra Acosta brought the first run in, during the eighth inning and made it a 3-run game. Barbara Reguengo kept the run going for Glendale with a double off the wall, which brought in Vivano and Acosta and suddenly the Vaqueros were only down 5-4, and still with no outs.

Just as the thought of a winning the game came into the minds of the Vaqueros, Reguengo made a costly mistake trying to steal second base and was caught off by the pitcher.

Christy De LaRosa got a single and the Vaqueros were still in it with only one out and with a runner first. Vera Picado hit a flier, which was caught by the catcher and once again, Glendale was in trouble with only one out to go.

Veronica Patini hit a grounder to left to get a single and runners were now on first and third base. Next up to bat was Cynthia Torres, with all the pressure on her to decide the game she hit a fly ball with a 3-2 count and L.A. Valley caught the flier to capture the win.

“We just weren’t hitting the ball at the right times in the first game,” said head coach Dave “Hawk” Wilder, “we made some dumb errors on defense that we could have avoided, but overall we played a pretty good game.”

Lira started the game with great throwing and got help from the awesome defense of teammates to allow only two hits in the first three innings.

But the hits from Glendale could not get going until Reguengo hit a fastball to deep right, which seemed to look like it was going to leave the park at first, in the bottom of the second; but it only gave her a single.

DeLaRosa had an excellent bunt to put runners on both first and second, with no outs. Unfortunately, the next three batters could not get a hit, so it ended the inning with no runs.

Lira hit a blooming flier to center field, which bounced off the wall to give her a double in the second inning. Acosta hit a grounder that was easily thrown to first for the out, but it put Lira in scoring position on third base. Acosta was intelligently walked to make a double play easy for L.A. Valley.

Next up was Reguengo, who hit a single to bring the first run in. De LaRosa grounded out to end the inning.

L.A. Valley tied the game, at one, in the top of the fifth inning with an ugly throw to first, which was recorded as an error, but allowed the third basemen to come in for the tie. While Lira did not allow any hits in the sixth and seventh inning, she was getting tired by time the second extra inning came around and L.A. got four runs, sealing the deal for the win.

In the second game of the double header, Glendale was down 4-0 but raced back, getting five runs in a row, winning 5-4.

“We are still a young team and we’re still in the learning process but I have seen a major difference in the team since the beginning of the year,” said Wilder.

Glendale will face Santa Monica in a double header on Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Santa Monica College.