Dos Pueblos’ Hannah Harris fanned five straight Royals at one point on Friday afternoon, an easy example of the dominating pitching performance that brought the Chargers a 10-2 Channel League victory at San Marcos.
Dos Pueblos' Amber Altavilla waits to turn a double play on Friday. Hannah Ball's hard slide broke up the play.
Dos Pueblos pitcher Hannah Harris begins her wind-up.
The sophomore right-hander struck out 11 total in her complete-game effort. Harris and the Chargers nearly had a 10-0 five-inning shutout but the Royals avoided the mercy-rule loss by scoring with two outs in the bottom of the fifth. Harris also contributed at the plate, recording three RBIs and a triple.
“I felt like I threw one of my best games of the season and my speed was pretty good,” Harris said after the game. “All my pitches were really working, especially my rise.”
Chargers head coach Donn Roberts noticed, judging her pitches to be in the 60-65 mph range. Royals batters were having troubles catching up to her fireballs for much of the day.
“(Hannah) does a really good job of placing the ball inside-outside and she’s also very quick,” said San Marcos first baseman Kelly McKay. “It’s something we should all be used to but obviously it is harder to hit. I feel like we could have adjusted a lot better to hitting her.”
McKay scored the Royals’ second run in the bottom of the sixth inning after finally connecting on a good swing. McKay’s line drive reached the right-center field fence for a triple. Already with two outs, Corinne Yingling beat out a grounder in the next at-bat to bring in McKay. Becky Estrada scored the Royals’ first run on an RBI infield-single by Chelsea Friedman.
The Chargers backed up Harris at the plate, compiling 11 hits on the day while scoring in each of the first four innings to put San Marcos back on its heels. Jordan Roberts and Chloe Madill had the big sticks, collecting three hits apiece. All of Madill’s hits went for extra bases, two triples and a double.
After averaging less than two and a half runs a game in its first 13 games, Dos Pueblos (6-9, 2-2) has now scored 19 runs in its last two games. The Chargers hope to continue the hot hitting in their three games next week, including two Channel League games with Ventura.
San Marcos (4-7, 0-4) looks ahead to a home-and-away series with the Dons.
DOS PUEBLOS 10, SAN MARCOS 2
Dos Pueblos 261 100 0 – 10 11 2
San Marcos 000 011 0 – 2 4 1
DP – Harris, and Meier. SM – Yingling, and Flattery. 2b – Madill. 3b – Madill(2), Harris, McKay.
