O"Leary was flawless in win. (Photo Anne Cypress)
(La Canada) – After nine days off, La Canada’s Lauren O’Leary failed to miss a beat striking out 12 Ramona Convent batters enroute to a perfect game in the Spartans 9-0 First Round win.
O’Leary continued her dominance of opposing batters with her second consecutive no-hitter in as many starts. She has flirted with three perfect games this season.
The top-seeded La Canada offense pounded out 16 hits as it advanced to the Second Round of the Division 5 bracket.
Aubri Thompson, Anna Edwards, Kelsey Drange, Lauren Cox, Selina Mohr, Stephanie Bathke and Jessica Ogden each finished with two hits.
After a scoreless first inning, Tigers pitcher Yvette Hernandez looked to have escaped the second inning with just allowing a runner to reach second. With two outs, Bathke scored from third on Ogden’s single. Edwards followed with a single to give the Spartans first and third. Drange banged a 2-2 count into the left-centerfield gap to score Ogden and Drange.
La Canada put up three more runs in its bottom half of the third to extend the lead to six. With one out, Thompson doubled and Cox’s bloop hit turned into a double as she rushed to second. Thompson could only advance to third on the play as the shallow fly nearly was caught. After Bathke popped-up to Melissa Cendejas, Mohr singled to score Cox for the fifth run of the game. Edwards batted in Mohr to close the scoring out in the inning.
The Spartans continued its offense push in the fifth inning with another three run inning. Back-to-back singles by Mohr and Ogden set the stage for Drange’s second double of the night that allowed Mohr and Ogden to score. Catherine Horner’s double scored Drange for the final run of the game.
While the Spartans enjoyed its offense explosion, Ramona Convent was on its heels trying to figure O’Leary out.
The closest the Tigers came to solving O’Leary came in the sixth inning on an innocent grounder to Drange which spun away from the first baseman. Drange played the spinning ball and rushed to first to keep the perfect game alive.
Cendejas grounded to Thompson to lead off the seventh inning for the first out. Alizah Mayagoita and Ellie Manriquez became strike out victims 11 and 12 for the historic perfect game.
The bats were hot for La Canada today. (Photo by Anne Cypress)
Leave a Reply