COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Cypress Falls Short of Title at Softball Tournament

Cypress ended its day a victory short of its goal, losing, 5-1, to Palomar in the title game of the Apple Photography Charger Softball Classic Sunday at Cypress College.

The Chargers (4-2) started the morning with a 2-1 loss to Palomar in the winners’ bracket final, but rallied to beat Rancho Santiago, 3-2, to move into the championship.

Cypress needed two victories against Palomar to take the title but quickly fell behind, 4-0, after a half-inning and managed only one hit (Briana Yoshina’s fourth-inning single) in the game called after six innings because of a tournament time limit.

“It’s early in the season,” Cypress Coach Brad Pickler said. “But it will put them back in their place. They thought they were going to go unbeaten.”

Still, Cypress had plenty of scoring chances because Palomar’s Jessica Fender (2-0) walked seven. She struck out four.

Cypress’ run scored in the fourth when Fender threw a wild pitch with the bases loaded, enabling Jenn Allchin to score.

The Chargers had the bases loaded, with two outs and the count full to Christy Megowan, but her shallow fly to right field was chased down by Polly Downey to end the threat.

Two more Cypress runners walked in the fifth, and Yoshina, the fourth-place hitter, was up with two outs. But the inning ended when a runner left early on a full count and was called out.

“We really made a lot of mistakes today,” Pickler said. “Not so much physical errors, but mental ones.”

One of two errors the Chargers made contributed to Palomar’s four-run first. With one out and a runner on first, Kylene Dyson grounded back to pitcher Jenny Lopez who threw high to first for a two-base error.

Lisa Flores followed with a two-run double and Julie Soderlund had an RBI single to put the Comets up, 3-0. Soderlund scored the final run of the inning on Krista Belford’s double for Palomar (5-0).

Mindy Anderson singled in Palomar’s final run in the sixth after Belford had singled, advanced to second base on a wild pitch and moved to third on a passed ball.

In the Irvine Valley men’s tennis tournament:

Lasers win three singles titles--Leon Jakimic of Irvine Valley beat Marcus Skogstrom of Citrus, 6-1, 6-1, to take first place in the No. 2 players division. Jason Pascua of Irvine Valley beat Roger Glaser of Palomar, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, to win at No. 3.