Hinojosa leads Southwest to win
By Darin J. McCann
Staff Reporter

Angel Escobedo catches a popout for Southwest. Photo by RUSLANA LAMBERT

It all started out well enough for the West, as leadoff batter Laura Keto singled off Hinojosa to start things off in the first. Two batters later, Andrea Berg singled to right to put two runners on with one out. But Hinojosa escaped trouble when she got West pitcher Stephanie Bolt to line out to shortstop and Danielle Russo to ground out to third.

The bottom of the first, however, belonged to the hard-throwing Bolt, as she struck out Marie Mousseau-Rioux, Selina La Manna and Casey Santos in order to retire the side.

The Southwest team struck first in the bottom of the second when Angel Escobedo knocked in Ashley Perez on a groundout, and they almost got a second run on the play when pinch runner Lauren Raab tried to sneak home on the play, but got thrown out at the plate.

The game broke open a bit in the bottom of the fourth. Santos led off with a double to right center, and a walk to Perez and a single by Amanda Delgado loaded the bases with one out. Hinojosa then knocked in two runs with a single to center, and Escobedo plated another with a groundout, giving the Southwest squad a 4-0 lead. An RBI groundout by Jaqueline Gonzales in the bottom of the fifth upped the Southwest lead to 5-0, and finished the night’s scoring for the Texas team.

It looked for a moment like the West team might stage a comeback in the top of the sixth. Samantha Lackner led off with an infield single, and Bates followed with a titanic homerun off Southwest pitcher Bianca Idar. But Idar put that behind her quickly and put down the next three batters to stop the bleeding, with her team ahead 5-2.

In their last at bat, hope sprung momentarily for the West as Brandi Manning led off the top of the seventh with a walk. However, Idar again put out the fire when she induced a popout from Samm Leivas and struck out Brooke Samudio and Keto to end the game.