The East Union Lancers hung tough for the first half of the game but ultimately fell 8-0 to visiting Mountain House on Tuesday afternoon in Valley Oak League play.
“Mountain House is a really good team,” East Union coach Dylan DeBrouwer said. “That game was a lot closer early on, and unfortunately we couldn’t get the bats going offensively early enough to get it done today.”
East Union (2-4, 9-9) was unable to get its first hit off of Mustangs pitcher Luna Lopez until the fifth inning, but was kept in the game due to some excellent pitching from senior ace Mikayla Simpson, who didn’t allow the first hit to Mountain House until the top of the fourth.
Simpson recorded five of her 11 strikeouts in the first three innings, and entered the circle at the top of the fourth inning with her team tied 0-0.
“Credit to their pitcher, she shut us down the first time through,” Mountain House coach Allison Noble said. “We weren’t sure how we would come out after 12 days off, but I thought we took very good at-bats starting the second time through.”
The top of the fourth saw the first four Mustangs (5-2, 15-3) get aboard with hits, with the key at-bat coming from Lopez herself. She helped her own cause with a sharp single that plated two to put the visitors up 3-0.
“Luna is the backbone of this team,” Noble said. “What makes her performance even more impressive today both offensively and defensively is she’s been battling some injuries. It was great to see her deliver after the top of the order got us going.”
Lopez finished the game with two hits and three runs batted at the plate, while striking out eight Lancer hitters and scattering just four hits in the circle.
“I thought we took some really good approaches against their ace,” DeBrouwer said. “We battled early and couldn’t get a run across then you get down, and it gets even tougher. I felt like we did everything but make really good contact until it was too late.”
After seeing the Mustangs play small ball to push across four runs in the top of the seventh inning, DeBrouwer finally saw his team square up some Lopez pitches. Junior third baseman Fallon Norman led off the top of the inning by hitting a ball deep to left field that hit midway up the fence, just missing a home run by a few feet. Senior second baseman Leah Altstadt followed that up with a towering double that landed just short of the wall in right field. The Lancers would strand the pair of runners, as Lopez completed her complete game shutout by retiring the final three East Union hitters.
“I was happy to see us square a few balls up there,” DeBrouwer said. “Both of those balls have a shot to go out on a less windy day, and it should give Fallon and Leah confidence moving forward in league play.”
The Lancers have a week off before traveling across town to take on Manteca next Tuesday.
“We’ll go back to work this week and get better ahead of a really good team in Manteca,” DeBrouwer said. “We had a pretty good offensive outing against them last game we just need to figure out how to keep them off of the scoreboard. I have two really good pitchers that I think can help us do that.”
