Alexa, what’s a shutout?

The Saddleback softball team completed a series win against Golden West College with a 9-0 shutout of the Rustlers on Friday in Huntington Beach.  Alexa Pfutzenreuter shut down  Golden West as the Bobcats won their 20^th game of the year.

Saddleback was looking for its first series win of the season after a tough start to conference play.  The Bobcats rallied for two straight wins against a Golden West squad that came into the series at 20-6 overall and in third place in the standings.

Saddleback was dominant throughout Friday, never allowing the Rustlers to get on track on offense.  The Bobcats finally broke through in the top half of the fourth inning when they scored twice to take the lead.  Malia Garcia broke the stalemate when she tripled to score both Tasneem Kerdiya and Isabelle Gedeon with the opening runs of the game. 

Saddleback tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning and got some help from Golden West in the process.  After a pair of singles from Pfutzenreuter and Cristen Areopagita to start the inning, both came around to score on a error by the Rustler center fielder later in the inning.

Saddleback blew the game open in the top half of the seventh inning when they scored five times to put the game completely out of reach.  Areopagita led off the inning with a solo home run for a 5-0 advantage.  Later in the inning the Bobcats had three consecutive hits from Macy Smith, McKenzie Lombard and Kerdiya before the Rustlers melted down.  Golden West then plunked Malia Garcia before Sabrina Truesdell reached base on an error, allowing three more unearned runs to score for a 9-0 lead.

Meanwhile, Pfutzenreuter was silencing the Rustlers throughout.  She allowed just two hits to Golden West while striking out five Rustlers in the process to improve to 8-5 on the season. 

Saddleback is now 20-10 overall and 4-7 in Orange Empire Conference play following the win.  The Bobcats play next on Monday at 2:00 PM against Cypress College in a game that started on March 14 but paused due to rain. Saddleback will be batting in the bottom of the third inning when the game resumes.