Clovers blank Edinburgh in opener

Monday, April 6, 2009
Cloverdale freshman Paige Gutierrez helped lift the Clovers'to two shutout wins Saturday.

CLOVERDALE -- The Lady Clovers made a statement Saturday afternoon on their home field -- we may be young, but were not pushovers.

Cloverdale blanked the visiting Edinburgh Lancers 1-0 in the first game and 3-0 in the second game of their season opening doubleheader.

In the first game it was standoff between the two freshman pitchers, until the bottom of the third when Kayla Shepherd hit an RBI single, scoring Breegan Anderson, who reached on an error earlier, for the go ahead run.

"It was a combination of nerves and good pitching that kept us from hitting the ball in the first game," CHS Coach Chuck Mowery said. "But we fixed that problem in the second game."

And fix it they did.

The Lady Clovers cranked out six hits in game two, compared to their three in the first one.

Paige Gutierrez started the Clovers off in first when she jacked one into centerfield for a standup double, but got left on base when Martika Byrd popped out for the third out of the inning. In the second inning, Sam Smith got the Lady Clovers rolling again when she doubled into left-center, her first of two doubles, scoring one Clover later on a Lady Lancer error at first.

Then in the in the bottom of the third, Shepherd scored when Gutierrez sent one to the fence for her second double of the day.

Rolling their momentum right into the next inning, Smith blasted another double into the outfield, then scored on the Whitney Bond's fielder's choice for the final run of the game.

"We settled down in the second game and put the ball into play," Mowery said. "And that's all I told the girls to do was to put the ball into play and make them play defense.

"I've got seven or eight girls that can hit ball besides Smith and Gutierrez. It's just a matter of getting them going as the season goes on," Mowery said. "As I said before, my main focus this year is to score runs so we can keep pressure on the other team.

Gutierrez did more than just hit the ball, proving that just because she is a freshman doesn't mean she doesn't know what it means to lead.

She struck out 13 in the first game and seven in the second. She even turned a double play from mound in the top of the fourth when she caught the fly ball, then ducked, turned and fired it to first for the double play.

"She (Gutierrez) has a lot of softball experience and she has been well schooled and you could tell than when she made that double play," Mowery said about his young pitcher.

Gutierrez also only gave up five hits in both games combined; four in the first and one in the second.

The other thing that made Mowery happy about his team is it didn't make one error in either game.

"We had no errors at all," Mowery said. "We have been working our defense hard and we have good quickness, so if we can play good defense as things go on; our bats should come along."

The Clovers are now 2-0 on the season and host South Putnam today at 4:30 p.m.

At Cloverdale

Game One

Edinburgh 000 000 0 -- 0 4 1

Cloverdale 001 000 X -- 1 3 0

P -- Gutierrez (C); Brown (E)

C -- Byrd (C), Murray (E)

WP -- Gutierrez

LP -- Brown

1B -- Estes 2 (E), Brown (E), Shepherd (C), Gutierrez (C)

2B -- Pendleton (E)

3B -- Byrd (C)

HP -- Todd (E)

SB -- McCammon (C)

Game Two

Edinburgh 000 000 0 -- 0 1 2

Cloverdale 011 100 X -- 3 6 0

P -- Gutierrez (C); Brown (E)

C -- Byrd (C), Murray (E)

WP -- Gutierrez

LP -- Brown

1B -- McGeorge (E), Knapp (C), Shepherd (C)

2B -- Gutierrez 2 (C), Smith 2 (C)

HP -- Estes (E)

BB -- Murray (E), Todd (E), Smith (E), Shepherd (C), Smith (C), Bond (C)

Next Game -- Cloverdale host's South Putnam today at 4:30 p.m.