NAPA, CA - Following their loss last Friday in the Big Game, it made sense that the Napa High softball team came out guns-a-blazing, which they did in their next game, a 25-4 win over Armijo.
“Absolutely,” Napa coach Ron Walston said of the importance of Wednesday’s game to get momentum started again. “We had a heart-to-heart a couple times after the (Vintage) game the other day and again today. Just reminding the of you know what they’re capable of and what they need to do to get this done and they definitely came out today with the energy that they need, they made some adjustments at the plate that we didn’t make the last time we played Armijo, and it was a good day overall.”
Napa (11-6 overall, 4-5 Monticello Empire League) opened up their scoring with a three spot in the bottom of the first that was highlighted by two home runs. Peyton Mott hit a solo home run over the fence in left center to get the Napa Indians on the board. Later following a Katie O’Donnell walk Lindsey Lehman came up and smacked a two-run home run to straight away center.
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Walston said of how the two homers got Napa going offensively. “We’ve been working on you know trying to change speeds at practice and they’ve been working hard on making adjustments you know depending on the pitcher, and it really paid off for them today, they’ve been working hard and hopefully we can keep it going.”
In the second Napa put the game away by putting up a 13 spot.
The Indians of Armijo (5-6, 3-4 MEL) scored their only runs of the day in the top of the third where they scored four. According to Walston in that inning his team became a little complacent.
“A little bit, I think they might’ve got complacent there for a little bit, but we can’t do that, we can’t let up,” he said of the third. “Obviously I don’t wanna run the score up, but we have to keep playing, and I think they might’ve just got a little bit complacent, so that’s why I changed pitchers just to change things up and you know make sure that they stayed in the game, stayed focused.”
After Armijo put up four runs Napa answered by scoring seven runs in the third and another two in the fourth.
Kimmie Walston started the game for Napa and went 2 and ? inning to get the win. In her brief outing she struck out one and walked one.
Jenna Baker came in out of relief and went the final 2 and ? inning striking out five.
“Kimmie pitched well, mainly I wanted to get Jenna back out there and get her confidence back, and you know they rolled off three or four straight hits there and you know you need to make a change at that point, but Jenna definitely needed some good innings and she got that today,” Walston added on both of his pitchers efforts. “She was making good pitches, she wasn’t getting behind in the count -- hopefully that’ll help her turn things around too.”
The win is a sense of revenge for Napa after their loss to Armijo on March 19th. Also, the win moves Napa to third in the MEL standings.
“We need one more (win) that’s for sure, and the score doesn’t really reflect the team that they have and I don’t see that happening again,” Walston said of winning the rematch over Armijo. “We’re going to face them again, and we’re going to have to play, we’re going to have to go to their place and get the job done.”
League play will continue for both teams on Friday at 4 p.m. Napa will host Rodriguez while Armijo will host Wood.
