After seven straight shutout wins, the Fernley High School team discovered last weekend that dominance doesn’t always equal preparation.
The Vaqueros had won their last seven games without allowing a run, but after losing two of three games to Lowry over the weekend in their first league series, coach Diane Chapin said those blowouts against weaker opponents didn’t give her team the kind of tests they needed for a matchup of that caliber.
The Vaqueros got just seven hits in the two games in which they faced Lowry ace pitcher Makinley Hislop and committed 11 errors in the series, seven of those in the first game.
Lowry won the series opener 7-3 on Friday, then the teams split a doubleheader Saturday, with Fernley winning the first game 6-3 and Lowry taking the finale 9-1.
Coach Diane Chapin said the Vaqueros weren’t ready to face a pitcher as good as Hislop and hadn’t been forced to make many plays defensively during their winning streak.
“For the last month we hadn’t had anybody make us play a whole lot of defense because our pitchers have been shutting everybody down,” she said. “When you spend your last seven games shutting everybody down, it throws you off a little bit.”
The Vaqueros found themselves trailing 7-0 Friday until Taylor Tollestrup worked a walk with the bases loaded in the top of the fifth. In the sixth, Emma Collins hit a triple that drove in Emma Masters and Grace Chapin, but Hislop retired the last four Fernley hitters to hold the lead.
In Saturday’s first game, Tollestrup doubled to lead off the first inning and later scored, then she homered in the third and sixth innings. Masters and Grace Chapin both drove in runs in the third inning as the Vaqueros put six runs on the board.
After facing Lowry pitchers Maite Bengochea and Elisabeth George in the first game Saturday, they scored just once against Hislop in the nightcap, when Tollestrup was hit by a pitch, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a groundout by Bella Leija.
“Their second pitcher throws good speed, but doesn’t move the ball as much, so we hit that pretty good, but I think she threw the third girl to see if she could really get our timing off, then turn around and throw her best pitcher at us,” Diane Chapin said. “It was a good move on her part to mess up our timing, which it did.”
The Vaqueros are now 10-4 overall and 1-2 in the Northern 3A East. This week the Vaqueros go to Elko, which won two of three against Dayton last week. Every league series in the opening weekend ended 2-1, and Chapin said that could indicate a balanced league.
“Early on in the league you’re still kind of testing things out to see who’s going to be that player that can get things done for you,” she said.
The first game in Elko will be at 3 p.m. Friday, with a doubleheader Saturday starting at 11 a.m.
“They still have the same pitching from last year so we know what to expect pitching-wise,” Diane Chapin said. “Our focus is going to be a lot of our game situations to make sure we know what to do. Just focus on good, competing at-bats.”
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