SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Junior shortstop Francesca Guerrera hit 3-for-3 with a sacrifice fly while third baseman Alex Garcia hit a two-run homer in the first inning, but St. Francis surrendered four runs in each of the second and fourth innings in falling, 13-7, to Elk Grove in the varsity end of a Delta League softball doubleheader at Schuster Field Wednesday afternoon.
The Troubadours fall to 8-10 for the year and even their league record to 4-4.
Guerrera singled to lead off each of the first and fifth innings, scoring a run in each frame: one on Garcia's bomb to start SF to a 2-0 lead, then again on a Jazzy Basquez liner to left. Basquez and Claire Krotine each hit 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Troubies as part of 12 total Troubie hits, but the team suffered from five errors that resulted in seven unearned Thundering Herd runs.
Elk Grove erased St. Francis' initial lead by scoring four unearned in the second. Guerrera plated courtesy runner Taylor Richardson in the bottom half of that inning to trim the deficit to 4-3, but Adriana Delaney's two-run homer to center gave the Herd a 6-3 cushion in the next stanza. Elk Grove pushed across four more runs in the fifth on singles by Katelyn Maciel, Jenna Porto and Addison Buckley, plus a dropped pop-up.
St. Francis managed a run in each of the fourth through seventh innings, but never pulled to within closer than four runs.
Meanwhile, the Troubie junior varsity scored a 5-2 win over the Herd on the opposite diamond. Shortstop Sorina Pometta, on loan from the varsity team, hit 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Marissa Jensen, Julia Nielsen and Jaeya Leavitt each had extra-base hits, although oddly, Jensen and Nielsen were stranded on their respective knocks. Jensen tripled in the second and Nielsen doubled in the fifth, but each with two outs. Leavitt's double brought in Pometta and Addison Hutchcraft in the sixth, providing insurance runs for reliever Jensen.
Layla Werner started in the pitching circle, allowing just two hits and one unearned run in five innings complete. She also struck out four with three walks issued.
The SF-EG matchup is the first of three games within a four-day span. The two teams head to Davis for a league doubleheader on Thursday, then return home for a Saturday morning matinee against Del Oro – the varsity meeting being a rematch of last year's Sac-Joaquin Section championship game.
