The Saratoga Falcons bested the Lynbrook Vikings 12-1 at the Vikings’ newly renovated field Friday afternoon in Santa Clara Valley Athletic League El Camino action. The game was called after five innings because of the mercy rule.
Saratoga (6-3, 2-0) started strong with four runs in the first inning as the top four hitters - Tivoli Sisco, Alyson Axline, Amanda Lee and Eleni Spirakis - all reached base and scored on successive hits to provide the Falcons with an early 4-0 lead.
Spirakis also did an outstanding job on the mound, striking out 11 to shut down the Vikings. Lynbrook (1-2, 0-1) scored its only run in the fifth inning when freshman Theresa Prada drove Haruko Matsuda home on a line-drive single.
The victory for Saratoga mirrored a recent game against Fremont in which the girls won by a score of 20-2.
"From day one, I've had high hopes with them because of the amount of talent we've had out there so I feel this team is just getting better and better every game and every practice,” Saratoga coach Joseph Medeiros said. “I see us doing very well in league and possibly, my hopes are to be in CCS, but as far as progress and talent, we're just deep. I've got only two seniors on this team and I've got four freshmen, so I've got a young team that plays and works hard."
Medeiros also plans for the talent to progress into future years of the program.
"That's the whole reason I'm here; to make it a multi-year showcase and I'm expecting us to be in the De Anza league next year - that's my goal," Medeiros said. "Those are high hopes, but that's the pressure I want to put on them because I know there's enough talent to get that done."
Despite the loss, the Vikings still see hopes of recovering as the season is still young. The way the schedule has worked out, junior Helen Li has done the bulk of the pitching for Lynbrook this season.
"Having been a pitcher myself, the way you work with one pitcher is the schedule is - luckily enough for us this year - has only put us with no more than two games [a week]," Lynbrook coach Stacy Benzing said. "So we have her do a good workout on Monday and the rest of the time, she gains most of her pitching time and experience from being out there and learning game to game."
The Vikings remain optimistic about their season as they see a stark contrast between their accomplishments thus far in this season compared to last season, when the team went 0-18.
"We're still a very young team in general,” says Benzing. “Our catcher is a starting freshman and we have only three seniors this year. We started with a young team last year and the record reflected that. It was thrown into the varsity mix and this year, they already started the season with a great win and we already, through the first three games, had more hits than halfway through all of last year.
"So they're making leaps and bounds and with the new facilities, they allowed us more opportunities for us to work with the girls one-on-one and get them the more swings that they need and the more time that they need to develop and do well this year."
