Nordhoff Buried Under Avalanche of Mistakes : Softball: Moorpark cashes in on seven errors and 12 wild pitches in 15-1 Frontier League rout.

Sandi Blundell, the softball scorekeeper for Nordhoff High, surveyed the scene and shook her head.

“I don’t think our girls have woken up yet,” she said as the Rangers allowed Moorpark to score eight runs in the third inning of Friday’s Frontier League game. “The ones who rode in my car were asleep when we got here and that’s not a good sign.”

Blundell knows her omens.

Moorpark won, 15-1, in a game called after 4 1/2 innings because the Musketeers (7-2, 6-1) led by more than 10 runs.

Nordhoff (2-10, 2-5) trailed, 4-1, entering the bottom of the third inning, but thereafter committed the majority of its seven errors and 12 wild pitches.

Moorpark, which lost only one player from last year’s league championship team, wasn’t exactly red-hot at the plate, finishing with nine hits and scoring only six earned runs.

While battling their own ineptitude, the Rangers also had to face Musketeer starter Mindy Penrod.

The league’s most valuable player in 1994, Penrod (6-1) went three innings, allowing one earned run and four soft singles and throwing strikes on 34 of 47 pitches.

“She was just throwing smoke and (Nordhoff) was half a swing behind her almost every time,” said second-year Moorpark Coach Tom Humphreys. “It was nice to get the subs in and work on some things that you can’t do if it’s a two-run game.”

Humphreys wasn’t as happy about the opportunity his reserves got Tuesday during a 7-0 loss to Calabasas. Moorpark’s hopes for a second consecutive undefeated league season ended there, but the players were jarred in the process.

“We kind of took it for granted that we’d go undefeated again,” said Moorpark left fielder Tina Milburn, who had a single and a home run Friday. “After Calabasas we were told that we have to play hard from the start of a game, not just pull it out at the end.”

No problem with that against Nordhoff.

Ranger starter Alyssa Capritto (0-3) surrendered 10 runs, only three of them earned, in 2 1/3 innings.

She was relieved by Jessica Hill, who made eight wild pitches.

“It’s attitude; they gave up,” Ranger Coach Fernando Coronel said, noting that Nordhoff was 0-21 last season under a previous coach. “There are nine girls who are back from last year and their record is still in the back of their minds.”