With a bad start there is often a good ending. This was not the case for the the Vaquero softball team April 26 at Scholl Canyon Park in Glendale, as they dropped the last game of the season, 13-1 against the Valley College Monarchs.

“This team has really given their best all season, but sometimes things don’t go your way,” said Vaquero Head coach, Dave Wilder.
The Vaqueros, who ended 13-11 in the Western Conference and 15-26 overall, couldn’t manage to hit off Monarch pitcher Pauline Morquecho.
Morquecho silenced the Vaqueros at the plate and pitched an excellent game as she held the Vaqueros to only two hits and struck out six batters.

Morquecho got some help from her offense as they bombarded pitcher Trista Carr and the Vaqueros hit after hit.

The Monarchs scored three runs in the top of the first inning with singles by Bronner Brecken, Amanda Salazar, Carla Arreola and Deyssy Esquivel.

But the Monarchs were not done yet as their bats erupted in what seemed to be a never-ending second inning.

The Monarchs started the inning off with a walk by Chandra Chavez. She then went on to steal second and third base. Leilani Madrigal followed with a single that passed Vaquero first baseman, Miki Mayorga.This allowed Chavez to score. Brecken followed with another single up the middle. Salazar continued with a triple that went over center fielder, Xochiti Tapia’s head. This allowed two more runs to score.

The rest of the inning continued to get even worse for the Vaqueros as the Monarchs continued to get more hits which also included a three-run home run by Brecken to deep center. The Monarchs ended up scoring 10 runs in the second inning.

Wilder gave credit to his team, who had to deal with losing five players, including a main pitcher in the beginning of the season.
“This team started off with an 0-10 record and bounced back to get some wins,” said Wilder. “They hung in there and never quit and I’m proud of them for that.”

Starting pitcher Carr and the Vaqueros held the Monarchs for the rest of the game from scoring any more runs, but the damage had already been done.

The Vaqueros’ only two hits came in the bottom of the fourth inning. Kristin Carr started off with a towering home run to left field. Cyndi Torres followed with a single to right field. But the Vaqueros failed to bring Torres home, which ended the inning.

The season ended for the Vaqueros as the game was called in the bottom of the fifth inning because of the eight-run mercy rule, which states the losing team must be within eight runs from the winning team by the fifth inning, or the game will be called.

Wilder said he is looking forward to next season in which he’ll have a bigger team, compared to the 10 players he has now.

“We’ll have about two to three returning players next year and about 12 to 16 girls overall,” said Wilder. “I’m definitely excited.”