Rocklin still reigns: Top-ranked softball team survives scare from Pleasant Grove
When you come at the king, you best not miss.
The Pleasant Grove softball team took its best shot at top-ranked Rocklin Wednesday, twice scraping together early leads and holding a tie score late into the game. But the 10th-ranked Eagles found their offense stymied and Rocklin’s Jayla Castro hammered a two-run home run in the sixth inning to help the Thunder surge to a 7-3 win.
Coming off an 8-1 win over Sheldon on Tuesday, the Thunder (4-0) found themselves in a nip-and-tuck battle with Pleasant Grove (3-1). Pleasant Grove had three runs in the first two innings, with ninth batter Riley Bigley providing a two-run single in the second inning for a 3-1 lead.
Then Rocklin coach Mallory Asaro changed her battery, bringing in Brook Thompson to pitch and moving Castro to catcher. Thompson struck out the first batter she faced to end the second inning with Bigley on second base and the Thunder settled down after a wild start.
“They had a little chip on their shoulder,” Asaro said. “They were a little too amped up. Once they settled down and they were who they are, then they settled down. … This is a really special group.”
Thompson and Castro are a special duo. Thompson is going to Boise State to pitch after this season; Castro has been set on going to UCLA since eighth grade.
Watching another team take a lead is not something Rocklin is used to. The Thunder allowed a combined total of just one run in their first three games this year. Giving up three in the first two innings was a shock to the system.
“We work real hard, but we’ve never seen aggressiveness like that,” Castro said. “We’ve never seen people stealing bases. Taking two or three runs from an error. So when we saw that, we had two choices. We could lay down and take it or we could bring our energy and fight back. That was our deal-breaker right there.”
Defensively, Castro and Thompson took care of business. Thompson finished with 15 strikeouts in 5⅓ innings of work. Castro called pitches behind the plate, an unusual chore for a high school student. But it’s not like she hasn’t been groomed for this moment. Her dad, Javier Castro, is the director of operations for Sacramento State University. He was in the stands in Elk Grove, helpfully telling Jayla to climb the fence to grab a foul ball that hit the chain links 20 feet over her head.
He’s her softball mentor, but you could actually hear her eyes rolling when asked about the chatter she hears from her dad behind the plate.
“Oh my goodness,” Jayla Castro said. “This man has literally been here my entire life. He always knows what to say, he’s chirping in my ear.”
She didn’t mean that in a good way.
“But at the end of the day, knowing that’s the voice I hear behind the plate, I know that chirping can be annoying, but if he’s saying something, I should usually listen.”
While Castro and Thompson were setting down Pleasant Grove, Eagles pitcher Ashley Goard was working the strike zone, hitting spots and keeping the ball in places the Thunder didn’t want to swing. The San Jose State-bound senior kept Rocklin guessing through five innings.
“She was so great at spotting weaknesses and staying on that,” Castro said. “She had the energy to get you where it hurt.”
Indeed, Rocklin had just two extra-base hits. Both came in the sixth inning, as Rocklin broke open a 3-3 tie. Bella Garcia got on base with a single, Raelyn Anderson doubled and Garcia scored on a fielder’s choice to make it 4-3. Then Castro hammered a pitch to dead center for a two-run home run. Her coach, Asaro, told her team after the game she was surprised the ball didn’t start a fire because of how fast it was spinning.
As they did all game, the Eagles tried to respond. Pleasant Grove put a runner on base every inning against Thompson, including a double from Kaylin Brozaitis and teammate Marley Escobar reaching on an error in the sixth.
No problem. Thompson struck out two straight batters to get out of the jam. She didn’t allow a run, as she hasn’t in four games this season. And Pleasant Grove isn’t a team that’s used to being shut down; the Eagles’ powerful offense combined for 51 runs in their first three games this year.
“Even with (Thompson) on the mound, we were on base every inning,” Pleasant Grove coach Brian Cherry said. “Even with her on the mound, she’s one of the best we’re gonna face, so I like where we’re at.”