Eureka girls fall to Wells, play at Mineral County today

The Lady Vandals with a new coach and only one senior have been seeking to learn a new system this softball season. The wins haven’t come along as much as hoped, but the outlook for the future looks bright, says coach Briana Brown.

“We’re getting the hits, just not scoring the runs. The girls are learning every day and making the attempt to bring it into the game. There has been a lot of improvement since our first game.”

Unfortunately, in the past couple of weeks, the girls have lost each of their games, including an 18-0 setback at Wells last week.

Brown said the Leopards scored nine runs in the first inning on just two hits, “but that was not really indicative of the way the girls played. Katlyn DelRio is a really good pitcher for Wells. We got a few hits, but couldn’t bring anybody around to the plate, although we did have our chances. We just surrendered a lot of walls this game.”

Still, Brown spoke of the marked improvement of Vandals pitcher Cammie Skinner from the beginning of the season. “The team itself is doing very well,” she said, becoming more aggressive on the ball, hitting pretty well, just not scoring as much as we would like. I promised them success and that’s what they’re doing and learning something new every day.”

Eureka played a double-header at the White Pine JVs April 8, and lost both games by fairly wide spread margins. A highlight for the Vandals was Savanna Sanders’ home run in the second game. “It was cold, with the weather definitely a factor,” said Brown.

Today, Eureka plays Mineral County (12-4) from Hawthorne in a double-header and hosts Carlin on April 25 followed by a non-league doubleheader with White Pine April 29 and conclude the season with Wells in Eureka May 6.

If the girls are able to earn a playoff spot, the regional tournament will be May 12-13 at Sandy Valley. The 1A state tournament will be in Las Vegas May 18-20.