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Pitman offense continues to struggle in softball loss to Downey
Pitman softball 1
Pitman's Jillian Baylard pitches against Downey Tuesday afternoon (CANDY PADILLA/The Journal).

To paraphrase an old adage, “you can’t win the pennant in March, but you can sure as heck lose it.”

The meaning is clear. While it’s way too early for any Central California Athletic League softball team to clinch the title, it’s not too early for a team to dig itself a hole that it can’t climb out of.

Pitman High’s softball team remained winless in CCAL action with a 3-1 loss to the Downey Knights on Tuesday.

The Pride dips to 5-3 overall and 0-3 in league action, while the Knights improve to 5-6 and 2-1.

Pitman will see action again on Thursday when it entertains first-place Gregori.

An 0-4 league start is a distinct possibility.

“As long as I’ve been at Pitman, we had never started out 0-3 in league,” said coach Joe Lewis, who took over the program in 2012. “We’ve got to turn it around, and fast.”

Following a perfect 5-0 preseason in which the Pride averaged 11 runs and 13 hits per contest, their bats have gone cold in league play, where they’re averaging just one run and four hits per outing.

Seniors Rylee Reeves, Madison Rosebrough, Ella Underwood, and sophomore Jillian Baylard each collected a base hit for Pitman. Those four are the leading hitters on the squad this year. Reeves, a .464 hitter in 51 career varsity games dating back to 2022, is hitting .609 (14-for-23) this year. Baylard is hitting .545 (6-for-11), Underwood .522 (12-for-23) and Rosebrough .500 (12-for-24). But aside from Reeves, who’s hitting .750 in league play (6-for-8), most of that damage was done in the preseason. In three league games, the rest of the team is hitting an anemic .131.

“I believe we can turn it around,” said Lewis, who has a 157-132-2 career record in 13 seasons. “We started out 5-0. We were so hot. We haven’t been hitting like I know we can.” 

Baylard pitched well enough to win, but took the loss. She scattered seven hits and two walks while striking out nine in seven innings in the circle.

 

Baseball

St. Mary’s 9, Turlock 0, at Turlock — The Rams, ranked 16th in the state by CalHiSports.com, roughed up starter Carson Gonzales, taking advantage of five walks to score six runs in 1 1/3 innings en route to the shutout.

Andrew Sevilla come on to relieve Gonzales, giving up five hits and three runs in 4 1/3 innings. Jaron Rocha took over in the sixth and retired all four batters he faced.

Sevilla, Rocha and Mason Baker had the only hits for the Bulldogs, who drop to 5-4 for the season.

Turlock will have the rest of the week off before starting a home-and-home series on Monday against Gregori at Mark de la Motte Field at 4 p.m.

St. Mary’s, meanwhile, will take part in the Boras Classic — opening Tuesday against Archbishop Mitty (San Jose) — at Army Depot Park in Sacramento. Central Catholic (Modesto) will open the Boras Classic against Palo Alto on Monday.