Saints Softball Takes a Tough Loss to the Bearcats

On March 3, 2023 the Saints took on the Bonita Bearcats at home and took a devastating loss of 0-10.  The Saints have now lost to the Bearcats for the second year in a row. Although it did not look good for the Division 4 Saints, they are an underclassman heavy team versus the Division 1 Bearcats who are dominated by upperclassmen, so the Saints have confidence that next will have a better outcome. 

Starting off the first inning the Saints were up first and hit one hit by Sophomore Laila Kaitangian, but no runs were put on the board. Then the Bearcats scored 1 with a homerun making the score 0-1 at the end of the first inning. Now going into the second inning the Saints were hitting the ball but unfortunately couldn’t get on, so no runs were scored in the second by San Dimas. Then in the bottom of the second the Saints made a few defensive errors that resulted in 5 runs made by the Bearcats. With the score now being 0-6 heading into the third inning.

The Saints were struggling this game and with the score now being 0-6 in only the second inning the Saints began to lose a little bit of confidence, “You could see the way that once we were down 6 we all just seemed kinda down, and any confidence that we had prior to the game was gone” Noelle Estephan (12). She went on to explain that it is hard to find confidence and the energy to stay motivated when you are down but it is so important to have that and she wishes we could’ve found it and fought harder then we did. 

Now onto the third inning the Saints had now more hits past this point and scored no runs. The Bearcats came up and the Saints made a couple mental errors so the Bearcats scored 3 making the score 0-9. Heading into the fourth the Saints defense held it down but neither team scored keeping the score at 0-9. Entering the fifth inning the Saints knew that if the Bearcats scored one more run the game would end in a mercy rule, so they tried their best to get runners on base but came up short. The Saints scored no runs in the fifth and the Bearcats scored 1 ending the game after the fifth making the score 0-10 Bearcats. 

This was a devastating loss for the Saints making it their sixth loss of the season. The Saints believed that they could’ve played better, “In the end it comes down to hitting, we couldn’t perform at the plate, and when people don’t get on, runs can not be scored and if you don’t score runs you can not win” Haleigh Jacobs (11). It has been a rocky start for the Saints so far, but they are looking forward to league in which they are confident they can pull off the league title.