OC Softball opened up the season with a resounding 7-1 win against Chaffey College behind stellar plays from starting pitcher Prescilla Garcia, who seemed like a jack-of-all-trades on the field.
Garcia came out ready to open the season with all around dominating play, as her coach Paul Garziano said, “She’s a Division one player on a junior college team.” And from her stellar seven strikeout performance only allowing one run and zero walks in four innings, to her final diving play at Short-Stop to end the game on a tag out. The idea of “Division-One” was well at hand.
“When I have kids like [Garcia], I have a lot of expectations for the season,” said Garziano. “We always hope for the best and you play this game one pitch at a time.”
Defense wasn’t Garcia’s only strong suit, going two-for-three with two runs scored, it seemed that any time Garcia stepped to the plate the opposing pitcher was in trouble. Along with the rest of the Condor squad having flawless outings, Chaffey never really had a chance.
Sarah Mendez went three-for-four with four runs and one run batted in; Kayla Mochizuki went two-for-three with one run and one RBI. The entire game was as if the gods of Softball wouldn’t allow OC to strikeout more than three times the whole game.
Even though this is only the season opener, Athletic Director Jonas Crawford had high hopes for his team.
“Coach Paul Garziano has put together a great squad and that’s evident by our 7-1 victory today,” said Crawford. “I like the way they play, I like the way they swung the bats, and it looks like they’re having fun out there. It doesn’t hurt to win either.”
In the top of the seventh, there were two outs, one runner on first and one up to bat. The ball was hit on a grounder to the gap in short when Perscilla Garcia leapt for the groundball catch, then extending her arm, almost crawling to second base for the tag. She came up with the out, and the top play of the game. Garcia started with pitching and ended at short with a stellar diving out; a veritable Jack-of-all-trades.
“I think today, it was our first game as a team, we did pretty good for not ever playing together before,” said Garcia. “I go all out every play.”
