Tigers fall in first round of districts

May 7-YAKIMA - The Ephrata Tigers (10-12) fell in a tough district tournament game against East Valley Wednesday afternoon, going 0-10 against the number one seed. The season is still alive for Ephrata as they continue on the road to Selah High School.

"We just didn't play aggressive softball," said Tigers Head Coach Lesa Trevino. "We were hesitant at times, especially offensively and against any good team like East Valley, you can't sit back."

Wednesday's matchup started out strong for East Valley as they put up four runs in the bottom of the first inning. That was followed by two runs in the second, three runs in the third and an additional run in the bottom of the fourth to give East Valley a 10-run advantage.

Ephrata battled through each inning, but a strong East Valley defense prevented the Tigers from making any progress. By the top of the fifth inning, the Tigers were unable to respond and fell 0-10.

Haley Trustey started on the mound for the Tigers where she allowed seven hits, nine runs and three walks with one strikeout over two and one-third innings. Sidney Chornuk followed up where she allowed one hit one run and threw one strikeout.

"We know what we're capable of. We know we're better than what we performed yesterday, so it's just now moving forward and forgetting about that game and going into our next one," said Trevino.

The coach said a good lesson from facing East Valley is recognizing that the Tigers compete at their best when they play free and attack. In the postgame, she said all the players were in agreement with this sentiment and are planning and playing more aggressively down the stretch.

Trevino said a good highlight from Wednesday is the mental and emotional resilience that the Tigers showed even after a tough loss.

"I think they're ready and locked in," she said. "There's still a lot of good moments that we took away from the game, we had a couple really good plays, there were some good base hits that we had, so it wasn't just a negative game. There was still a lot of positives that came out of it."

The Tigers are not going to dwell on this loss as they prepare for Saturday's games and instead will opt to get back to practice and grind out where they want to improve, said the coach. The main focus will be to get the confidence to attack early and build up their energy to compete against other top teams in the district.

"I think the girls have done a really good job reflecting and being honest with themselves," said Trevino. "Now the focus is just turning the page and competing on Saturday."

The Tigers head out to Selah High School Saturday to face Prosser at 11 a.m. The winner of that game will go on to face Selah at 1 p.m.

BOX SCORE

EPHT: 0-0-0-0-0: 0

EVLY: 4-2-3-1-X: 10

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