COMMUNITY COLLEGE SOFTBALL ROUNDUP : Cypress, Rancho Santiago Miss Chance

Cypress and Rancho Santiago each had a chance reach the winners’ bracket final but failed at the State softball tournament Friday in Riverside.

Rancho Santiago beat Sacramento, 2-0, in its first-round game but fell to Long Beach, 11-2, in the second round. Cypress started with a 1-0 victory over Chabot in eight innings but lost to Palomar, 3-1, in nine innings.

Cypress and Rancho Santiago fall to the losers’ bracket; Long Beach and Palomar meet at 8 tonight in the winners’ bracket final. Cypress plays the winner of Chabot-West Valley at noon. Rancho Santiago plays at 2 p.m. against the winner of Sacramento-San Mateo.

Cypress had the best chance to advance but the Chargers made two errors in the ninth that enabled two runs to score in the 3-1 loss to Palomar.

The Chargers got two runners on in the bottom of the inning and had Christa Saindon, who leads the team with 41 runs batted in, coming up. But Saindon popped to first and Jenn Allchin lined to left field to end the threat. Cypress stranded 12 and Palomar 10. Rockie Breig had four hits and Allison Murphy had two for Cypress.

Jennifer Ortiz (27-3) got the victory for Palomar and Jenny Lopez (15-4) took the loss for Cypress. It was the second victory of the day for Ortiz, who pitched Palomar to a 5-0 victory over West Valley earlier Friday.

Rancho Santiago scored two unearned runs in the third to take a 2-0 lead against Long Beach, but the Vikings scored 10 runs in the fourth to put the game away.

Long Beach sent 14 batters to the plate and got eight hits and took advantage of three Rancho Santiago errors in the same inning.

In first-round games:

Cypress 1, San Mateo 0 (8)--Brianna Yoshina singled with two outs to drive in Saindon in the top of the eighth. Debbie Goddu (17-3) pitched a six-hitter for Cypress and was helped by her defense when left fielder Breig threw a runner out at the plate in the sixth.

Rancho Santiago 2, Sacramento 0--Renee Taylor’s sacrifice fly drove in Christina Mazurie with the Dons’ first run in the fifth. Grizelda Lopez scored on an error in the seventh for Rancho Santiago’s other run. Amy Tessman (22-7) pitched a four-hitter for the victory.