Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
Fresh off a hard-fought series with Fallon last weekend, the Fernley High School softball team takes on another top 3A East challenger this weekend at Lowry.
Rivalries don’t get much closer than Fernley and Fallon softball have been over the past decade. The teams came into the series tied 26-26 against each other over their past 52 meetings, many of which have happened either in the state tournament or with state tournament berths on the line.
This time the two teams were opening the league season against one another, and befitting the close nature of the rivalry, Fallon came away winning two of three, outscoring the Vaqueros 10-9 over the three games.
Fallon won the first game 5-2 Friday night, but Fernley came back to win the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, 4-1. Fallon then held on to win the rubber match 4-3, a game that ended with the potential tying and winning run in scoring position for the Vaqueros.
“It was nice to beat them at least the once,” coach Diane Chapin said. “Two would have been nice, but they were all good games, so knowing that we’re right there with them.”
Fallon built a 5-0 lead through five innings in Friday’s first game, scoring two runs in the second and fourth innings and one each in the third and fifth. Fernley got a two-run double by Sara Moffett with no outs in the bottom of the sixth, and had a change to get closer, but had a runner thrown out at the plate trying to score on a fly ball to end the rally. The Vaqueros also put two runners on base in the seventh, but came up empty.
In Saturday’s first game, it was Fernley jumping out to the early lead, taking a 1-0 lead in the first on a sacrifice fly by Taylor Tollestrup. Jocelyn Pimentel made it 3-0 with a two run homer in the second inning. After Fallon cut the lead to 3-1 in the sixth, Joslyn Wadsworth got the run back with an RBI-double in the bottom of the inning.
The Saturday finale was a frustrating one for the Vaqueros, who had 11 hits to Fallon’s 3, but a couple of baserunning mistakes thwarted two rallies, and the clutch hit that would have resulted in a big inning kept eluding them.
Fallon broke a 1-1 tie with three runs in the top of the fifth, but singles by Ciara Pritchard and Tollestrup set up Pritchard to score on a wild pitch to make it 4-2, but the chance to get closer ended when a runner was thrown out at third. Then in the seventh a runner was thrown out at home trying to score from second on a base hit. Starr Schennum then doubled in a run to make it 4-3, but Fallon escaped the jam and stranded runners on second and third.
“All we can do is keep getting better,” Chapin said. “It’s March, so we want to clean the things were still making mistakes on in May.”
The Vaqueros again face a front-loaded league schedule, with Fallon followed by Lowry, then Elko. Last year after struggling against those teams, the Vaqueros ran the table the rest of the league season and went into the region tournament with momentum.
But while Fallon, Lowry and Elko may again be the top challenges the Vaqueros must overcome, Chapin said the rest of the league may be better than last year. Elko won two of three last weekend against Lowry and Dayton took two of three from Spring Creek, but all six teams had winning records in nonleague play.
“I think this year it’s pretty up in the air as far as I think anybody can beat anybody at the moment, because everybody has at least one good pitcher,” Chapin said. “We’re lucky that we have four.”
Baseball team struggles in league opener
The Vaqueros have been up and down to open the season in nonleague play, but they took their lumps in last week’s opening series of league play, losing to Fallon 15-0 Friday and 13-1 and 10-0 on Saturday.
Fernley is 4-9 overall, including a 14-8 win over Fallon in a tournament game. They also have two wins over South Tahoe and one over Wooster.
This weekend they face Lowry, which has similarly struggled to a 5-9 start and was swept in three games by Elko last weekend.
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