Breaking a playoff drought of more than a decade can be a challenge.
Just ask the Moody softball team.
The Trojans were seemingly in cruise control with a 6-2 lead over Gregory-Portland going into the seventh inning but it took late heroics from freshman Kaelynda Gallardo to find a way.
Gallardo’s one-out RBI single down the third base line allowed Moody to overcome a disastrous top of the seventh inning with a 7-6 walkoff win at Cabaniss Softball Stadium on Monday in a District 29-5A play-in game.
The win put the Trojans in the playoffs for the first time since 2015, where they will face Rio Grande City in the Class 5A Division II bi-district playoffs later this week.
“Staying together and picking each other up really helped us,” freshman pitcher Raelynn Gonzalez said. “At the end of the day, this is what we’ve been working for. All the practices and hours, staying late at school, this is what we’ve worked for. We are relieved with how the game went.”
Gregory-Portland scored four runs on six hits and an error to open the seventh inning, but with the bases loaded, Gonzalez and the Trojans came up with three consecutive forces at home to wriggle out of the jam with the game tied at 6.
With momentum despite yielding a four-run half inning, Moody came through quickly. Anabelle Flores and Julia Perales reached on a single and an error setting the stage for Gallardo’s game-winner.
“We knew it was going to be tough and we were saying from the get-go that it was going to be a gritty G-P team,” Moody coach Cassie De Leon said. “The defense wasn’t the greatest tonight but we had the last at-bat and we had to find a way to scratch somehow. We stayed loud and positive one at-bat at a time, one pitch at a time.”
Gonzalez and Gregory-Portland pitcher Emily LaFavers each had to deal softball grip issues due to the elements, which alternated between drizzle and mist for much of the first five innings. Moody had five errors in the field, but only yielded one hit through six innings and the Trojans capitalized with runners on the base, plating runs in the first and second innings before breaking through with three runs in the fourth.
Lovieann Vasquez came through with the biggest blow, a two-run triple that gave Moody some breathing room.
Gonzalez credited her experience pitching in the wet weather and pre-game work where she was wetting the ball to prepare for the game.
“I have played in weather like this before and we were getting the ball wet in bullpen, so I could feel it,” Gonzalez said. “I just went out trying to hit my spots, knowing that my team had my back if I did miss a pitch or threw it down the middle.”
Gonzalez was 3 for 3 with a triple, helping her own cause, while Gallardo had three RBIs in the win.
De Leon said the mix of experience and talented freshmen led the team’s success this year, and back into the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
“We have a good little mix with six upperclassmen and four freshmen and a couple of juniors in the middle,” De Leon said. “We are kind of learning from each other at practice. We try to have that veteran mentality, even with our newbies. Trusting each other and working toward the common goal. At the beggining of the season we knew we could do something, we just needed to be consistent and go compete every game.”
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Moody softball snaps playoff drought, edging Gregory-Portland in tiebreaker
Reporting by Quinton Martinez, Corpus Christi Caller Times / Corpus Christi Caller Times
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