Bunts Push Thousand Oaks to 2-0 Victory

The Thousand Oaks High softball team taught Camarillo a tough lesson Thursday: Bunts win games if they are not defended against.

The Lancers did not hit the ball out of the infield against Camarillo ace Laura Richardson, but three consecutive well executed bunts helped defeat the host Scorpions, 2-0, in a Marmonte League game.

Richardson (4-2), last season’s Southern Section 5-A Division player of the year, retired the first 13 batters she faced, including the first five on strikeouts. Her dominant beginning prompted Thousand Oaks Coach Chuck Brown to change the game plan.

The Lancers (4-1, 3-0) went to the short game, executing consecutive bunts in the fifth inning, and cashed in for two runs.

“We finally began to put the ball in play,” Brown said. “Sometimes against a good pitcher like that, you gotta execute those little fundamentals--like the bunts.”

After Richardson walked Angie Nau on four pitches with one out in the fifth, Suzi Klusyk pushed a bunt past charging first baseman Ginny Mike for a single. Michelle Lauer (who pinch-ran for Nau) and Klusyk advanced on a double steal, setting up Dani Burns’ squeeze bunt. Burns’ bunt got away from third baseman Tresa Peraza, and Lauer scored easily for a 1-0 lead.

Amy Ecklund followed with a push bunt to the right side. Mike fielded the ball cleanly, but no one covered first.

After a force at the plate for the second out, Richardson surrendered a bases-loaded walk to Christy Collier for the Lancers’ other run.

Thousand Oaks pitcher Carrie Russell (4-1), who scattered three hits and struck out nine in just 80 pitches, knew the short game was the only option against the hard-throwing Richardson.

“We figured we couldn’t hit her,” Russell said. “We gotta try and bunt on her and make them make errors.”

Russell and the Lancers’ error-free defense allowed just three Camarillo baserunners, none of whom advanced past second base.

Miki Mangan, who has signed a letter of intent with Cal State Fullerton, had two of the Scorpions’ three hits.

Camarillo (5-3, 1-2), which was shut out by Simi Valley in league play last week, will need to sharpen its offense--as well as its bunt defense--if it is to defend its league title.

“We’ve got to make the defensive plays,” Camarillo Coach Darwin Tolzin said. “That’s the bottom line. We’re sitting back too much and waiting for Laura to do it all.”

Richardson, who allowed only two hits on the fifth-inning bunts, struck out eight and walked two.