LOWER LAKE >> It wasn’t exactly the kind of tuneup Lower Lake High School softball coach Chris Emberson wanted as the Trojans prepare to embark on their North Central League I schedule, but the veteran coach managed to take a few positives out of the 13-1 pummeling administered by the Montgomery Vikings on Tuesday afternoon in Lower Lake.
For starters, the Santa Rosa team that banged out 12 hits and scored in every one of its at-bats in the five-inning game is pretty good.
“That’s probably the toughest team on our schedule this year and I say that with no disrespect toward Clear Lake or Cloverdale,” Emberson said of his league rivals.
Montgomery (7-3) made the most of the five errors committed by the Trojans (6-3), who had a five-game winning streak snapped.
“A lot of their hits came after those errors,” Emberson said. “We gave them four or five outs in some of those innings and you can’t do that against a good team. I’m really disappointed with the defense because we were averaging less than an error a game going in.”
Lower Lake did bang out seven hits, including two each from Azuree Meza, who drove in the Trojans’ only run with a RBI single in the bottom of the third, Kristen Celli, who doubled, and Mikelynn Rowe.
“I was fairly happy with the way we swung the bat,” Emberson said. “We left too many people on base but otherwise I thought we hit the ball pretty well.”
Losing pitcher Ashlynn Mock worked all five innings, striking out none and walking three.
“We’ve got to play defense behind Ashlynn because she’s not going to strike out a lot of hitters,” Emberson said. “I thought she threw the ball pretty well. Montgomery put the ball into play and we didn’t do a very good job catching it.”
The Vikings built a 6-0 lead with three runs in the first inning, another in the second and two more in the third. After Meza’a single in the bottom of the third made it 6-1, Montgomery added to its lead with three runs in the fourth and four in the fifth. The game was called because of the 10-run mercy rule after Lower Lake failed to cut into the lead in the bottom of the fifth.
Lower Lake hits the road Friday to play Kelseyville in the league opener for both teams. First pitch is 4 p.m.
