Clark tops Desert Oasis for key win

Clark’s players and coaches insist they’re not focused on the Southwest League softball standings or the Sunset Region playoff picture.

But there was no hiding  the importance of a win in Thursday’s home game against Desert Oasis.

“We just come out and play,” said third baseman Sydney Staresinich, who had a two-run single in the first inning of Clark’s 4-1 victory.

“We just want to do our best. We talked before the game ... if we beat them, we’d have a chance to go to the playoffs.”

The Chargers (13-10, 6-4 Southwest) played as though they needed the win, too, scoring three times in the first inning and once in the second and relying on the steady pitching of Elisa Dawson to move within a game of the third-place Diamondbacks (9-18, 7-3).

The top four teams in each league qualify for the playoffs. Clark and Desert Oasis have six league games lefy. Spring Valley, 6-5 after a loss to Durango on Thursday, has five left.

“I didn’t say anything to them about the playoffs or the standings,” said Clark coach Andrea Leavitt, whose team lost to Desert Oasis in

March and would have fallen three games behind the Diamondbacks and remained in fifth place with a loss. “I try not to put too much pressure on them.”

Staresinich’s two-run single with one out in the first scored Shannon Chapman and Anna Jaehn to give the Chargers the lead for good.

Marisol Salas followed with an RBI single.

Chapman added an RBI single in the second, giving Dawson more than enough breathing room.

After Desert Oasis scored a run on a Clark throwing error in the first inning, the Diamondbacks didn’t have another runner safely reach third until the seventh inning.

Emily Heinz had two hits, including a double, and scored the Diamondbacks’ run.