3/11/10 - Beginning and the End Not Enough for the Royals

By Tim Gooszen

Fullerton, CA- Though both games started and ended well for Hope International on Thursday, it was not enough to overcome #3 Point Loma Nazarene as the Sea Lions defeated the Royals 9-2 and 9-1.  Sophomore Bree Briones drilled a two run homerun down the right field line in the first game.

Freshman Janelle Medor opened the home half of the first inning with a single into center field.  Then with two outs in the seventh inning, after a leadoff by single by Freshman Kayla Uphold, Briones turned on a pitch and deposited it over the right field fence.  Unfortunately, in between those three hits, the Royals had just one player reach base on an error.

On the other side, the Royals played the first four innings about as well as they could defensively.  Two Sea Lions were thrown out trying to steal second in the first and fourth.  In the third, after a Sea Lion reached on a fielder’s choice, she tried to catch the Royals napping but Uphold was up to the task and threw her out trying to advance to second.

Seven hits in the fifth and sixth combined plated a total of four runs for Point Loma.  Three errors by Hope International allowed the Sea Lions to tack on five more runs.

Uphold went the distance and suffered the loss to fall to 6-5 on the season.

Game two saw the first two Sea Lions collect hits and come around to score.  Senior Sheyna Alarcon gunned down her third would be base stealer of the day to help the Royals out of the early jam.  After allowing a run in the third and three more in the beginning of the fourth, Freshman Leslie Coffee received some props from her teammates and coaches after tracking down a foul ball in left field and then throwing a dart to nail the runner at the plate trying to tag up from third.

Three more runs in the fifth pushed the Sea Lion lead to 9-0 to give the Royals one last chance.

Freshman Carly Asher led off the bottom of the fifth with a single to left.  Asher moved up o third on a couple of wild pitches and then coasted home on Uphold’s double to left.  Uphold was 2-3 in the second game.

Alarcon just missed extending the game when she lifted a high fly ball to left field that sent the Point Loma left fielder all the way to the fence and she ended the game with essentially a homerun robbing catch.

Sophomore Alexis Alonzo, who was 2-2 at the plate in the second game, took the loss in the circle.

The Royals will complete a doubleheader that they started with Menlo two weeks ago up north on Friday at 1:00 pm at Craig Park.

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