There was a pitching duel on display on March 19 at the Dean and Ada Gay Sports Complex between Bakersfield College pitcher Julie Estep and Riverside pitcher Nichole Zink.
Estep pitched a complete eight-inning game giving up seven hits and striking out seven batters in a 1-0 extra-inning win. Zink pitched seven innings and faced one batter in the eighth and gave up four hits and stuck out nine.
The teams struggled offensively with neither team scoring a run at all in the seven regulation innings.
Riverside got some offense going in the top of the seventh inning only to be outdone by Renegades defense.
Riverside outfielder Sarah Vasquez hit a long shot to left field that had BC outfielder Brittney Messer backpedaling.
Messer would leap to the wall and came down with the ball in the glove to deny Riverside a home run.
In the same inning with Riverside infielder Kylee Dattilo on second base, Lindsay Monk singled up the middle where Kaitlin Toerner met the ball and made a dead on throw to BC catcher Kara Frankhouser.
Due to the tournament rules the eighth inning went to a tiebreaker, the rules of which state that the last out of the previous inning would start the next inning on second base.
In the top of the eighth inning, Riverside would advance a runner to third base, but Julie Estep got her seventh and most important strikeout to end the Riverside attack. BC second baseman Jazmine Irvin started their half of the eighth on second base for the Renegades.
Frankhouser took the second pitch of the at bat to the outfield and Irvin rounded third and slide safely into home to win the game for BC.
Frankhouser and Irvin both talked about the eighth inning and the walk off.
“Coach [Sandi Taylor] told me to just stay aggressive but not get picked off. The idea was just one base at a time but when I saw my chance I was going home,” Irvin said.
“I was in the zone and I was feeling very confident about myself, with Jaz’s [Irvin} speed on second I knew that any ball to the outfield would score,” Frankhouser said.
Coach Sandi Taylor talked about how the win would result in some momentum.
“Our confidence is a 10 out of a 10, I told the team they had to come ready to play because they’re [Riverside] a very legit team,” Taylor said.
The win brought BC to 9-8 on the season while the loss brought Riverside to 19-3 on the season.
The second game for BC on the first day of the tournament was a 10-3 victory over Pasadena originally scheduled for 5 p.m. was moved to 3 p.m. Pasadena entered the contest at 5-18 and on an eight-game losing streak.
The game consisted of 26 hits, 16 for BC and 10 for Pasadena.
Every starting batter for the Renegades got a hit except for one. Toerner and Messer both had three hits on the game and drove in one run, and third baseman Laura Fox went 2-4 with three RBIs.
BC Pitcher Taylor Ward struck out five batters and gave up 10 hits.
There was a game against BC and Santa Barbara scheduled for March 20 but was canceled due to stormy weather.
There was no makeup game announced.