With Six Unearned Runs, Cypress Backs Into Victory

Cypress, through very little effort of its own, beat Saddleback, 9-2, in an Orange Empire Conference softball game Friday at Cypress.

Three of Saddleback’s four errors led to six unearned runs, including the first four scored by first-place Cypress (27-3, 11-1), which holds a three-game lead over Saddleback and Santa Ana with nine left.

Saddleback’s Jennifer Rivera-Odum singled home Tara Kroener in the fifth to give Saddleback a 2-1 lead.

At that point the Gauchos were nine outs from handing Cypress its second consecutive loss and moving within a game of first. Cypress had its 18-game winning streak stopped Thursday in a 4-1 loss to Fullerton.

But the Chargers ended any notion of a losing streak in the bottom of the inning by scoring three times without a hit.

Nicole Falls and Mandy Rockwell walked and one out later, Sandra Mulder bunted to Kroener, who had moved from shortstop to third to start the inning. Kroener threw high and wide to first and the ball went deep into the right-field corner.

Falls and Rockwell scored easily and were followed by Mulder who sprinted hard all the way to make the score 4-2.

Cypress’ struggling offense showed up in the sixth and accounted for six hits and five runs. Falls, Rockwell and Michele Bailon each had run-scoring singles.

Mulder had two hits and scored twice and Falls and Rockwell also scored twice for Cypress.

Reanna Mendoza (12-0) gave up nine hits but didn’t walk a batter and pitched a complete game for the Chargers.

Rivera-Odum and Kroener each had two hits for Saddleback (17-7, 8-4).

“For some reason,” Cypress Coach Brad Pickler said, “we’re not sharp right now; we need to get sharp again.”