By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
The defense of the NW Vandals 14U-Oliver team came through in the clutch in their bracket opener Friday afternoon at Wallace Marine Park against the Foothill Gold Jason squad from Sacramento.
After surrendering eight runs Thursday in pool play, the Vandals defense settled in their 13-0 shutout victory to open bracket play to get to Friday night’s 5pm game against the Oregon Thunder-Glaze team. The Thunder had rallied to stun the Silicon Valley Fusion in their opener to set-up the meeting.
“I thought we did really good today compared to yesterday because the first game yesterday, we made a couple of errors but we still did decently. Today we just came out and pounced,” “We did pretty good. We just need to stay loud in the dugout and just keep cheering each other one. When we do that, that’s normally when we’re do good.”
Malia Scanlan drove in 4RBI’s in the win as Jasmine Morales and Emma Mendes each hit home runs.
In their evening game against the Thunder, the Vandals fell behind 8-0 early before Marlina Martinez (2RBI Double) and Hadley Craig (2RBI single) had back-to-back big hits in a five-run sixth inning to get the NW Vandals back into the game. The Oregon Thunder shutdown the comeback efforts in the seventh however to hand the Vandals a 8-5 defeat.
The NW Vandals-Oliver will play the NW Vandals-O’Neill at 9am Saturday morning at Wallace Marine Park
Photos By Jeremy McDonald