On Thursday, March 24, the COS softball team played a home game against the Porterville College Pirates, in which they lost 13-4. This loss solidified the fact that they have lost eight of their last 10 games and sit at 2-4 in conference play.

Even though the Giants are 6-17 on the season, they currently sit in fourth place in the CVC and are tied with the Pirates, who are the main rivals for COS at this point in the season.

As for Thursday’s game though, there wasn’t that much to be celebrated in terms of scoring, or in terms of score prevention from the pitching staff. A primary example of this was pitcher Madisen Shimmon, who had given up five earned runs in only two-thirds of an inning.

Furthermore, Shimmon also gave up those runs on only two hits and two walks and struck out the two batters she had gotten out in the inning. Nataly Espinoza, the next pitcher of the game, would go on to give up eight runs, with only three of them earned through 5.1 innings pitched.

After 10 hits and five walks, as well as five errors on defense behind her and the lack of offensive production on the other side of the plate, it was a recipe for disaster for the Giants.

For those hitters, hits were few and far between. However, Madisen Shimmon, second baseman Jacquelyn Esquer, catcher Mandy Pimentel, first baseman Shalom Sanchez, and center fielder Sarai Ozuna all finished with base knocks for their stat sheets.

Pimentel and Shimmon both had three hits to their name, while Shalom’s one-hit had landed safely past the fence in left field for a no-doubt home run. With seven runners left on base though, there was clearly more to be desired here, and shortstop Janette Ochoa’s four runners left on.

At the end of the day, the team finished with a 13-4 loss, one that is just another blemish on top of the freshman season of this softball team. With many bright spots in this game and in others before this though, there is still more for this team to achieve this year.

Thank you for reading! For more sports, and all other news written by student reporters at The Campus, make sure to check out thecampusjournal.com.

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