Long Beach State bound Shelby Frutoz hit a home-run, pitched a complete game, allowed no earned runs, struck out eight and finished with three hits as she helped lead the Turlock High Bulldogs to a second straight win over Pitman High on Thursday, 3-1.
“Shelby did great, she is our horse and she hit her spots and mixed it up, keeps everyone off balance and gets a strikeout when she needs it; she gets it,” said Turlock head coach Jill Ogden. “Our defense made some big plays from the outfielders as well; catcher threw out a runner and it was good.”
“Yeah this was a big game coming, and we have Enochs and Gregori next week,” said Pitman head coach Joe Lewis, whose team also snapped a two-game win streak. “We played a better game than the first game, because in that first game we had a lot of errors, and this was pretty clean and held it off till the end; but it is what it is.”
In their first meeting on March 21, Frutoz went the distance again as she went seven innings, allowed four hits, one earned run and one walk and struck out 12 in a 6-1 win.
This time it was their second of three games for the year.
Things kicked off immediately as Frutoz drilled a solo home-run to deep center in the top of the first inning.
Then down 1-0 in the bottom of the first, Kai Deleon scored on a fielder’s choice to even the score at 1-1 by the start of the second.
The score remained the same until the top of the seventh inning.
It was then that Turlock began to rally against sophomore Pitman pitcher Gabby De Leon who was able to keep the Bulldog bats quiet until a two-out rally changed things up.
With two outs, Faith Hernandez hit an RBI triple to go up 2-1.
Faith Erb added the third and final run after she hit an RBI blooper to drive in Hernandez.
Things got interesting in the bottom of the seventh inning when Maddy Insell of Pitman beat out a throw to first base, which then set up Gracie Alves as the go-ahead.
This was followed up after De Leon got on base, but was pinch run by Kayleen Zayehmoure.
Time was then called by the Pitman coaching staff, making things more dramatic and dragging the continuation of the game.
Alves managed to get a touch on a Frutoz pitch, but the ball hung in the air long enough near the foul-ball line and was forced out to end it after a late rally.
“Here in the final stretch, we have to win. The girls know that when you play a team three times, you have to make sure you get two out of three, all we need is that, but we really needed this win,” said Lewis.
Addison Machado finished with three stolen bases for Turlock. Offensively, Turlock finished with seven hits and committed two errors.
“Pitman is always good and when they get on base, they are very dangerous and they run the bases really well and move runners over well,” said Ogden. “They started off the game with a lot of energy and Shelby’s homer helped us out and tied it, then we kind of held them till the end.”
Pitman is currently 5-8 overall and 3-4 in the CCAL. Turlock’s overall record is now 9-4 and 5-2 in CCAL play, tied with Gregori (5-2) for second place in league. Enochs is perfect at 7-0.
Frutoz finished the game with one walk in seven innings pitched and allowed just six hits — all singles.
Faith Hernandez finished with an RBI and a triple. Faith Erb tallied an RBI.
Turlock will next take on Gregori at home at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday.
“We have one more crack at them and then anything can happen. Gregori is good and anything can happen, we have seen it before, but we cannot really worry about Enochs or the top team,” said Ogden. “We need to worry about what we can control and play our game and take it game by game.”
Pitman’s next game will be at home against Gregori at 3:45 p.m. Monday.
“We need to get them mentally ready,” Lewis added.
