Gauchos get their breakout game

SEBASTOPOL -- Casa Grande has been in a holding pattern this year. The Gauchos have played well enough to compile a winning record, but they had yet to put together a breakout game that stamped them as legitimate Sonoma County League contenders.

Casa coach Louie Bruce had been waiting for that game, anxious to see a game played at a high level. The wait may be over.

On Thursday, Casa played virtually flawless softball, banging out eight hits and getting a combined shutout from pitchers Brittany Tieken and Alyssa Silva to defeat Analy, 8-0, on the road.

The Gauchos, who have been prone to making errors, even in their wins, had one harmless mistake in the bottom of the seventh with two outs. It was a performance that not only pleased Bruce, but also put the Gauchos in third place behind Windsor and Petaluma.

Casa improved to 10-5 overall and 4-2 in league. Analy, the SCL champs in 2005-06, dropped to 5-13 and 3-3.

"This was our best game of the year. If we can build on this, we will be OK," Bruce said. "We finally picked it up today. We had six errors against Windsor and at least four or five against Petaluma, but today we played really well.

"We've dropped at least 10 pop-ups this year. We've been working on that everyday. This was a big win for us. We got to play all our girls in the game, which we haven't been able to do all year because our games have been so close."

Ironically, the Gauchos' only error was a dropped pop-up.

Tieken, the Casa starter, got the win, her seventh. Four shutout innings dropped her earned run average (ERA) to 0.72. Silva threw the final three innings, allowing one hit, while striking out four. The junior right hander also walked one.

Analy starter Cassie Petersen kept the Gauchos off the board in the first two innings, despite a porous defense that committed three errors. In the first, she got Liana Finer on strikes with two on, and in the second fanned Danielle Carney to end a mild threat.

In the third, the Gauchos broke through for five runs. With one out, Alyssa Perez beat out a bunt, the game's first hit. Sierra Perez followed with a walk and Sabrinna Soldavini smacked a double to right center, just out of reach for Breanna Varnadore, to score both. Finer drove in Soldavini and Alexa Malmgren collected an RBI single. Noelle Skanderson capped off the rally with a sharp single for two runs.

Soldavini added another two-run double in the fourth inning.

Casa scored its final run in the sixth inning on a walk to Carney, a ground out and Alyssa Perez' single up the middle. That run was charged to Nicole Ochoa, who pitched three effective innings in relief.

The Tigers had one good opportunity to score against Petersen. In the third they had two of their three hits, both singles. Lily Wagner led off with a single, and with two outs, Varnadore had a bloop-single to short right field, only to have Finer make a strong, accurate throw to nail Wagner at third.

Melissa Wagner had the Tigers' other hit, a single in the seventh with two outs. Silva enticed Heather Lunardi to ground out to third to end the game.