Getting better every game is the Lady Rattlers’ goal.
San Marcos hosted its annual tournament at Rattler softball diamond starting with three games on Thursday where it went 2-1 after dropping the first game 12-3 against Navarro. The Lady Rattlers returned to the field against Southwest and Houston Christian where they defeated both of them 3-2 and 11-0, respectively.
Head coach Cathy Stoughton spoke on the team’s performance in the first game of the day and how wants her team to prepared for every matchup the same
“You can’t put a certain value on one game and a lesser value on another every time, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is in the other dugout. Whether it’s a district game, a tournament game, they’ve got to approach it with the same intensity,” Stoughton said. “I told them they need to appreciate the fact that they can come out to play softball every day. There are a lot of people that would love to be able to play this game and have an opportunity to play high school softball.”
The message was received in the second game of the day against Southwest but it was surely earned. The Lady Dragons took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning.
Both of the Lady Dragons’ runs were scored on errors by San Marcos (7-10, 1-1) and the hosts knew they had to pick it up if they wanted to redeem themselves from earlier in the day.
“Where it could be fatigue and you know — but at the same time those are plays we normally make,” Stoughton said, “I think it all comes back to focus and engagement. It is difficult sometimes to treat each game with the same intensity because of the meaning of each game.”
From that point on, the purple and white, led by junior starting pitcher Kayli Saenz, shut the Dragons down for the rest of the game. Ironically, the visiting team’s coach mentioned that you can’t have only two on the board and expect to win a seven-inning game.
San Marcos took advantage of that sentiment with a walk by sophomore infielder Brycelyn Pinales. Immediately after that, lead-off hitter junior outfielder CJ Castilla laid down a bunt, which the Lady Dragons tried to turn into a routine out but instead led to Castilla getting an inside-the-park home run.
Castilla is used to laying down bunts toward the first base line but she didn’t know a home run would come out of it.
“I know as a player, when you’re going for bunt, you want to stay calm. And so me as a lefty, I have a lot of privileges,” Castilla said. “I’m used to putting bunts down on the first base side, so I knew she was back and had been there. We had another runner on, so when I saw her go, when they threw the ball, my instincts were just to go to the next bag. And so it ended up being a home run.”
Sophomore catcher Jessica DeLeon put a hard shot into play for an RBI single, which gave the Lady Rattlers their first lead of the day. Meanwhile, Saenz continued to dominate in the circle as she retired 10 straight batters after the first inning.
“Just keep hitting my spots and that’s pretty much it,” Saenz said. “I just had to start clearing my hips more and focusing on my spins.”
Southwest wasn’t out of it though as the team loaded the bases with two outs. Saenz again forced a popout to keep San Marcos ahead and give the hosts the win, 3-2.
The Lady Rattlers returned to the field Friday and split their next two games with a win against Houston Christian, 11-0, and a loss to Lindale, falling 6-5.
Each time the purple and white lost, they came back with more energy to avoid dropping two in a row. In the final game of the tournament, San Marcos put up 10 runs in the first inning in a 12-0 win over Life Prep (Kansas).
San Marcos concluded its tournament on Friday and is now 4-2 in its last six games. The Rattlers head back into district play on Monday against school rival Buda Hays (2-2) at 7 p.m. on the road. Stoughton said this tournament was good for her team and will prepare them for the district schedule to come.
“It was big for us to come out Wednesday and pick up that win,” Stoughton said. “You kind of feel like you’re snake bit a little bit, so I think we finally have turned that corner and we’re playing with confidence. We got to see a lot of the big variety of pitching this weekend, I think that was something that we needed to see as well. Overall, I felt we did really well. Everybody contributed this weekend, and this week, and we got to see a lot of good competition. And we get a couple of rest days and then we’re back at it on Monday.”
