By GANNON HANEVOLD
Moapa Valley Progress
Despite carnival rides and fried fair food ahead, the Moapa Valley High School Softball team focused on two important games at hand last week. The Pirates took on two talented competitors in their league including Del Sol and Chaparral, hoping to stay undefeated on their league record.
The week started on Monday, April 9 with a home game against the Del Sol Dragons. It seemed that the Pirates started out not expecting to get much of a struggle from the Dragons in this game. But Del Sol had other plans as they headed out to Moapa Valley for what head coach Matt Messer says his team has begun to call “Flat Monday”. Fresh off of the weekend, sure enough, the Pirates came out slow as Del Sol jumped out to an early lead.
The Dragons led 3-0 after their first set of at bats. Later in the game, it would be 5-4 in favor of Del Sol going into the fifth inning.
After a scoreless fifth inning, the Pirates still needed enough to take the lead in potentially their last two at bats. Luckily for Moapa, the runs started coming at just the right time. After a four run inning, the Pirates made their way into the final inning with an 8-5 lead. They would hold on and leave with a victory of the same score.
“We had to work through some things the first few innings,” Messer said. “They were a little better than we expected too; and hit the ball a bit. You can’t be hot all the time but we got hot when the time was needed.”
He spoke of his team’s ability to be patient on a slow day at the plate as well, adding, “We as coaches panic a bit sooner than the players do. They know they have it in ‘em and it’s just a matter of deciding when it’s time to go. I hope that doesn’t come around and bite us; but they stayed with it.”
In their second game of the week, the Pirates traveled Wednesday to take on Chaparral, one of the best teams in the Sunrise division, based on record. However, in this one, it was Moapa Valley who came out and showed who was the cream of the crop.
The Pirates started brilliantly and never wavered. The Pirates scored in each of the first four innings, including a nine run inning in the fourth to put the game away.
Sure enough, 16-0 would come in as the team’s final score. This was largely thanks to a phenomenal day on the mound for Pirate pitcher Emilie Barraza. She gave up just one hit in her four innings of pitching alongside a hit by pitch. Her six strikeouts stood out at the top of the statistics.
“Emilie kept them off balance,” Messer said. “The defense didn’t have to work that hard because she was taking care of business. If she’s on, we’re really tough to beat. If she’s on and hitting her spots, we’re tough. The two games where Emilie’s been really on, we’ve been great.”
He spoke of the Chaparral game in general as well, adding, “We started really strong and had talked to the girls about jumping on them early. They were a pretty good team and we imposed our will on them a bit. They’re well coached and have some good players so getting on them early was key. But they never really knew what hit them.”
Moapa Valley jumps to 3-0 in league play this season and will continue their regular season with two more games on the schedule this week.
