After losing four straight games, the Bakersfield College softball team responded with a come-from-behind victory in the last inning over Mt. San Antonio College on April 15.
After losing the first game of the doubleheader 8-1 on April 15, they found themselves down 3-0 going into the bottom half of the seventh inning, but they managed to put the first two on with nobody out.
Then back-to-back ground balls scored two runs to draw within 3-2 with one out.
Sarah Smith took care of the rest. She got a pitch she liked, and hit it just inside the left field foul pole for a walk-off two-run homer.
The Renegades won it 4-3 to get the split with Mt. SAC.
“I couldn’t have scripted that better if I tried. That was amazing,” said BC coach Sandi Taylor. “That team over there was 25-4 after they beat us in the first game, so that was just their fifth loss.”
Taylor was excited for the way her team hung in and persevered.
“It just goes to show them that if we can keep the game close, anything is possible and today was a great example of that,” she said.
On April 10 at BC, the Renegades played Glendale College in an afternoon doubleheader. The first game Glendale beat BC 9-0.
The second game was much more competitive, but once again with the same result, Glendale won again by a 3-2 score.
“We win as a team, and we lose as a team, and right now we’re not playing very well. I don’t know what the answer is, but we have not been playing very well,” she said.
“We’ve got to find a way to get out of the funk we’re in, and I don’t know what the answer is. We’ve been fortunate to still be putting up some W’s, but we’ve been struggling as a team.
“It’s not one area, it’s all of it. If I could put a label on it, it would be easy to fix, but I can’t put a label on it. I don’t have the answer for it.”
BC lost against College of the Canyons 4-1 in a battle of two conference contenders on April 5.
Canyons starter Kimmie Lockhart, who is 16-1, went seven innings and allowed only an unearned run while striking out five and walking only two.
BC beat L.A. Valley College with a 6-1 victory at BC and won again against L.A. Mission 4-2 on April 3 in Sylmar.
BC ends its regular season with games at Citrus on April 19 and at L.A. Valley on April 24.