After not even fielding a team last season, the City College Vaqueros are headed to the Southern Regional softball playoffs.
The Vaqueros have a record of 28-11 on the season and were seeded ninth in the Western State Conference Gold Division. The Vaqueros are scheduled to travel to San Diego this weekend to play the eighth seeded team, Grossmont College. They will play the best-of-three series to see who will continue on for the playoffs.
This is the first time in four years that the Vaqueros will make a playoff appearance and the team is confident and ready for the challenge.
“Going into this weekend we are very confident in our ability,” said first baseman Alexa Sorenson, “But I think it is good to have nerves because you can always channel that and use it as positive energy, if we can do that and play our game the rest will take care of itself.”
The Vaqueros were seeded highest in the Western State Conference and are ranked 11th in the state with 288 total runs scored, averaging over seven runs per game.
Leading the Vaqueros offense is freshman catcher Monica Salas, who has 35 RBIs and is hitting .429, which is second in all of the Western State Conference.
On defense, the Vaqueros’ top pitcher Madison McNamee currently holds a 16-5 record and a 2.30 ERA. While Grossmont has an overall ERA of 3.87, the Vaqueros are on top with a 2.88 ERA.
Grossmont’s season record is 28-12-1, which is almost identical to City College’s record and the team is well aware that this will be a close series.
“We seem pretty evenly matched as far as our records go with Grossmont so it should be a good series,” Sorenson said.
The first game of the series will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 7 in El Cajon, and game two will begin at noon Sunday, May 8. If the teams were to split the series, a third game will be held to decide who takes the series.
