NAVASOTA — As a coach you know you have a standout softball pitcher when you can’t keep count of all her accolades.
That was the case for College Station head coach Vinnie Carreon as Gracie Ream tossed a no-hitter in a 10-0 victory over Georgetown East View in the opener of their best-of-3 Class 5A area playoff series Thursday at Ira Floyd Field.
The no-hitter certainly wasn’t the first of Ream's career but the question of if was the junior's first in the playoffs is still up for debate.
“Unfortunately, we kind of take it for granted sometimes,” Carreon said of the right-hander's feats. “I’ll have to go back and look at what happened last year but yeah, she threw great."
Ream struck out the first batter she faced, then issued a walk. The Florida International University commit methodically retired 15 straight in the five-inning game. Nine outs came via strikeouts, three were groundouts and two popups. She needed only 61 pitches, striking out 10.
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Run support was no problem. The Lady Cougars didn’t take long to get on the board. After Ream and the defense got out of the first, an RBI single from No. 4 hitter Bryce Clendenin got the offense rollilng.
Fittingly, the senior ended the game in the fifth via the run-rule with her walk-off sacrifice fly.
East View (18-17) wasn’t so lucky in the circle. Starter Hailee Pena worked three innings and gave up eight runs with five of them earned. Reliever Olivia Garza gave up the final two runs in two innings.
College Station (28-5) scored runs in four of the five innings with the lone scoreless frame the fourth. That inning was the first scoreless one this postseason for the 21-5A champion Lady Cougars in 14 innings.
The Lady Cougars led 8-0 after the fourth inning, but weren't satisfied.
“I don’t feel like we hit the ball really hard other than [Samone Clark’s] ball that left the ballpark and Bryce’s shot against the fence [in the first] but we were finding holes and we were competing at the plate,” Carreon said. “We had a hard time early with the riseball but once we kind of started recognizing that, putting the ball in play and [the] pressure [was] on them, things were happening for us.”
The series will continue Friday with the second game set for 5 p.m. at Georgetown’s Patriot Park. A third game, If necessary, would follow. The series winner advances to play the Lake Belton-Elgin winner.
The College Station-East View series is a rematch of last year’s Class 5A area round the Lady Cougars won in two.
“Just more of the same,” Carreon said about looking to close it out. “We talked about that right now. We got to make sure we’ve got our energy from the very beginning. They’re going to come back and fight tomorrow. This looks exactly the same it did last year. We beat them 10-nothing last year in the first game and game two we won 2-nothing, so we need to make sure we come out ready to go cause their backs are against the wall and they’re going to be ready to fight us and we got to be ready to answer.”
College Station 10, Georgetown East View 0
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College Station;134;02;—;10;11;0