Imperial muscles up to beat Brawley

BRAWLEY — Powered by two three-run home runs and solid pitching, the Imperial High softball team assured itself a share of first place in the Imperial Valley League standings with a 13-3 victory over the hosting Brawley High here Tuesday night.

The Tigers’ victory avenged a 5-4 loss to Brawley last week at home, a week that saw Imperial lose two IVL games, its first two losses for the season.

“This is the team I know; they had everything with them today,” said Imperial head coach Andrea Horton, who noted her team had lost two players to injuries last week. “We overcame the injuries and the losses and we just had a great game.”

Imperial’s Janelle Sandoval, who was injured in the Brawley game last week, made her comeback to the lineup a payback as she hit a towering three-run homer in the top of the second inning to give the Tigers a 3-1 lead.

“The injury was in my mind and I struck out the first time up,” Sandoval said who also had an RBI single. “So I was thinking that the first good pitch I saw I was going to hit hard and I knew it was out when I hit it.”

Imperial scored two more runs in the third inning on an RBI single by Karinn Arballo, then added three more runs on Andrea Sotelo’s three-run blast in the fourth.

“She was trying to pitch around me,” said Sotelo, who walked three times. “She got one inside and over the plate and I just drove it … we wanted to try to put the game away early.”

Imperial put the game away in a five-run sixth inning that featured a two-run single by Ashley Caro.

Caro, herself coming off an injury, picked up the victory on the mound for Imperial and kept the Wildcats at bay despite giving up run-scoring singles to Jo Karla Jimenez and Cassi Mendoza.

“I’m coming back so I was off a little bit,” Caro said. “I was trying to throw strikes but the umpire had a tight strike zone.”

Caro struck out two and walked just one while Brawley’s losing pitcher Justine Gonzalez struggled with her control, walking nine batters.

Brawley coach Chris Velasco was as perplexed at the Wildcat offense as well as her pitcher.

“I think she may have been trying too hard, too nervous … it’s different when you pitch at home,” Velasco said. “We needed to hit better, we had some good ones but we weren’t able to get anything going consistently.”

Both teams will be at home on Friday as Imperial (19-2-1, 6-2 IVL) hosts Palo Verde Valley while Brawley (12-11, 4-4 IVL) welcomes Central. Both games begin 6:30 p.m.