Lady Brahmas sharpen softball skills
May 18, 2017
It has been an inconsistent season for the Diamond Bar High School softball team, with the season coming to a close with a league record of 4-11 and an overall record of 9-16.
“It’s been a unique season and we had very high expectations, but we had quite a few injuries, and as a result, we didn’t fare as well as we thought we were going to,” head coach Roberta Garcia said.
With four players out due to injuries, the team’s lineups were limited to the 10 players on the roster. According to Garcia, South Hills and Glendora were the toughest teams this year in the league.With a strong rotation, the South Hills Huskies defeated DB in multiple games, including a 3-0 shutout. The Glendora Tartans are another team that the Lady Brahmas struggled against, losing all three meetings. However, the Lady Brahmas also took their own close victories including wins against Ayala, Bonita and Claremont.
“Glendora has been doing better and better every year, and last year we really struggled to beat them as well as this year,” said Becky Winders via text, “South Hills has a really good pitcher that basically is able to keep the ball away from us.”
As the season comes to a close, the team is saying farewell to seniors Becky Winder, Ruth Munoz and Ariel Moreno who both plan to continue their softball career in college. Their absence, however, leaves a big gap for the team to fill. Having pitched 108 innings out of the 140 innings pitched throughout the season, Munoz had the highest batting average with .466.
However the team has a strong foundation in the underclassmen, with freshman Emily Ruhl and sophomore Kimberly Flores being key contributors to the offense. Also freshman Ruhl and freshman Sarah Zepeda led the team in home runs. Winders said that she believed that as soon as freshmen Anna Lasko and sophomore Mikayla Malatka recover from their injuries that the pitching staff would be in good hands.
“We hope all our players go out to play travel ball to gain more experience so that we can compete in the Palomares League,” said Garcia, “They put a lot of time and effort outside of our team to play on travel ball teams because their ultimate goal is to play college level.”
