High School Roundup : San Pasqual Takes Advantage of Errors to Win

San Pasqual High School softball Coach Mike Basalo was talking about leaving the ground floor for the penthouse Tuesday night.

His words were elicited by a nine-inning 5-4 victory over cross-town rival Escondido. Escondido, which Basalo picked as his preseason favorite to win the Avocado League championship, entered the contest at 2-0 in league play. San Pasqual came in at 0-2.

“We finally made it to the penthouse,” Basalo said after the victory.

Well, not quite. The Eagles still have a long elevator trip before they can say that, but what sparked Basalo’s enthusiasm was the fact that the victory over Escondido has put the Avocado League on notice that the Eagles intend to contend.

Previously, San Pasqual was thought to be in a rebuilding year, what with a freshman and three sophomores in the starting lineup.

“But I don’t believe in that philosophy, ‘You’re a year away,’ ” Basalo said. “You can always win if you hang with it.”

After going up, 1-0, in the bottom of the first inning on a couple of errors, San Pasqual fell behind in the top of the second when the two Fluherty sisters, Krista and Karee, each hit safely and came around to score for Escondido. In the fourth inning, San Pasqual retook the lead with three runs, again capitalizing on Escondido errors (three of them).

Katherine Longfellow opened the inning with a walk, went to second when right fielder Michelle Crouch dropped Sheila Teach’s fly and scored from there when first baseman Janie Gabbard--who took the throw from Crouch once the right fielder corraled the ball--threw it into center field trying to catch Longfellow at second.

Teach made it all the way to third on the errors and scored on a sacrifice bunt from Susie Esposito. Esposito eventually crossed the plate on a single by Holly Short.

“We haven’t played this badly defensively in a long time,” said Escondido Coach Jeff Carlovsky. “The kids are real tight, they haven’t beat San Pasqual in a long time (since 1987), but that’s not taking anything away from San Pasqual. They played real well. We just made too many mistakes to win.”

Escondido made some more mistakes in the ninth. In fact, the winning run scored when--with runners on first and second--pitcher Kristin Haag fielded a sacrifice bunt from Jill Combe and tried to throw out Rene Crysler at third. The throw, however, wound up in left-field foul territory and Crysler, who had singled and moved to second on a base hit by Nikki Gannon, came all the way around.

In all, Escondido committed seven errors.

“Every game in this league seems to be decided by one run,” Basalo said. “So the errors are really magnified.”

So, too, is the pitching, and in this case, it was San Pasqual sophomore Renee Williams who came through in the end. After giving up those two hits and two runs in the second, Williams settled down and allowed only two more hits over the final seven innings (she was also charged with the two unearned runs in the fifth).