It was the first home game of the softball season for the Bakersfield College Renegades, and they were given the task to face off against the defending State Champions Mount San Antonio College (SAC) from Walnut California. The Renegades are coming off a back to back Conference Championships seasons, which leaves a lot of high hopes going into this season and many more expectations for this group of young ball players.

Pitching Coach Tiffany Dennison commented about the team for the upcoming season, “we’re aiming for consistency and playing with a lot of heart.”

The game started on the Bakersfield College softball field against state champions Mount San Antonio College.

Mount SAC played like they are aiming for back-to-back titles. Mount SAC came in with aggressive pitching and an air-tight defense the entire game, and the Renegade softball team had no answer for this style of play. With constant strikeouts and groundouts, not much offense could be produced against Mount SAC.

Mount SAC tested every aspect of the Renegade’s capability.

In the first inning, BC held them to only one run, but an explosion of hits came into the second inning, with Mount SAC ending the inning in a 0-8 score, leaving the Renegades in a hole they could not come out of.

One of the highlights for the Renegades was a pop fly Mount SAC hit, causing second baseman Alexis Gutierrez and shortstop Alex Venegas to crash into each other to make a play. Gutierrez came up with the out, but it was clear the girls were not communicating much on defense.

The Bakersfield College Renegades softball team came out slow and played with little communication. The offense had a lot of trouble against Mount SAC pitching, but during the times they did get on base, there was more trouble in advancing players to scoring positions.
They did not many attempts on stealing bases, playing very conservatively throughout the game and failed to take many chances against an air tight Mount SAC defense.

In the final inning, the score ran up to 0-15, and with only one out left in the game, the Renegades had a girl on first and another on third base. Natilee Parrish came up to bat and hit the season’s first run batted in (RBI) for Bakersfield College, ending the game with a 1-15 season opener score.

After the end of the game, Assistant Coach said, “Rough start to the season but they played with a lot of grit, good pitching, and need to clean up all around.”