Guam slips to Central, 12-1, in World Series debut

Central proved that their return to the Senior League Softball World Series for a second consecutive year was no fluke, as they powered past the Guam Little League team, representing Asia-Pacific, 12-1, on Monday afternoon in Day 2 of the competition. Central’s second baseman, Angie Dainelli, and catcher, Jillian Busfield, found themselves in scoring position early in the first inning, and they made it home on errors from Asia-Pacific for a quick 2-0 lead.

Central’s starting pitcher, Cassie Boocher, retired Asia-Pacific’s first three batters, but the Guam team kept the pressure up, as Jessian Taijeron’s double to right-center field brought around Jasmine Castro, closing the gap to 2-1. Tight defense from both infields kept batters off the bases for the subsequent innings, until Central’s offense came alive again in the sixth.

Steady bats lit up the bases for Morgan Allison and Jackie Logston to advance home, after a shot from Kayla Chapman fell in shallow right field. The bases load up for Kalie Niezgodski, who knocked a hit down the third-base foul line for two more runs to score. Special pinch runner Alissa Plenzler added a seventh run to the scoreboard before the inning was over.

The Central team, out of South Bend, Ind., made work tougher for the Asia-Pacific team in the sixth and seventh, when Chapman’s double to left field gave her a third RBI on the game. Allison got home off a short hit from Emily Vanteornhour, who made it home by way of Boocher’s grounder to third.

Central tallied up 14 hits in the win, with Niezgodski and Chapman’s two RBI’s apiece accompanying Chapman’s three.

Logston relieved Boocher in the sixth and threw three strikeouts in the remaining two innings, allowing no runs, to secure the second win for Central. Boocher faced 21 batters, allowing only one run and picking up five K’s. Ritanna Pocaigue struck out two batters in Asia-Pacific’s loss.

Central’s manager, Derek Hicks, said he hoped his team can clean up some of their play at the plate headed into their Tuesday bye.

“I’m a little disappointed in the way our offense played,” he admitted. “The girls are doing very well, but we’ve got to come out strong and be rested and ready to play on Wednesday. We still have some work to do. We play the host team that evening, and we’ve played them last year. They’re a very good program, but win or lose, we’ll have fun.”

Asia-Pacific opened the week with a bye, debuting on Monday against the South Bend Central team.

“There’s not a lot of preparation from that first day,” said Asia-Pacific manager Alexander Gumataotao. “Now we’ve got games back-to-back-to-back. There’s not much time for practice in between, and our time in Guam is 14 hours ahead of Delaware.”

Opening the series with a loss is never favorable, but as he noted, his girls can’t dwell on it.

“I told the girls that today’s game is history. We move on, one game at a time, pitch-by-pitch, out-by-out, seven innings of play. That’s all we have to do.”

The busy week ahead had Gumataotao rotating his pitchers atop the mound.

“I’m trying to limit the number of innings each one pitches, because of our schedule. We just need to come back out and play Asia-Pacific softball.”