Maybe the Tem-Cats should skip preseason play every year.
In what was nothing less than a dominating performance, Temple pitcher Derah Rushing gave up only two hits as the Tem-Cats recorded a 9-0, season-opening victory over Harker Heights.
Rushing had at least two strikeouts in every inning except one for a total of 14. The two hits she allowed were to a single batter, Brittany Blakely, and only once did a Heights player advance past second base.
“She’s waited long enough for this moment,” Tem-Cats coach Alana Wood said of Rushing. “She handled herself well on the mound.”
Pitching was not the only impressive aspect of the Temple’s game. Its defensive play as a whole was stifling.
Right fielder Ronnie Garcia began the highlights by gunning down Blakely as Blakely was trying to stretch a long single into a double in the first inning. The next inning saw catcher Amanda Mangham catch Dezarae Trevino in a rundown after Trevino wandered a little too far from the bag.
Then Rushing took over, striking out the side in the third and getting two more strikeouts in the sixth after Mangham thwarted Heights’ Lacy Berger’s effort to steal third.
Rushing handled two grounders and had a strikeout in the sixth, and though she gave up a double and two walks in the seventh, Temple finished the game with a shutout.
“I’m happy for them, that their hard work paid off,” Wood said of the Tem-Cats. “I’m proud of the way they played.”
That pride extends to the offensive department as well.
The Tem-Cats scored four runs in the first, thanks to runs batted in by shortstop Haley Morris, third baseman Kayla Dornon, second baseman Krystal Zaragoza, and Garcia.
Mangham drove had two more hits to drive in runs, and went 3-for-3 with three RBI. Garcia finished with two RBI. Dornon batted in her second run with a bunt in the sixth, and first baseman Morgan Lidey walked in the ninth run of the game for Temple.
The win was as big as they come for a team relatively untested and coming off a relatively disappointing year in which it failed to qualify for the playoffs.
“We gained a lot of confidence tonight,” Wood said.
