Rancho downs Las Vegas, takes two-game lead in Northeast

Rancho’s softball team hasn’t celebrated a league championship in more than 10 years.

And while the Rams aren’t planning any parties just yet, they took a major step Friday toward at least thinking about a celebration.

Amber Marlett pitched seven steady innings backed by near-perfect defense, and the Rams took advantage of five Las Vegas errors to post a 6-3 road victory and take a two-game lead at the midway point of Northeast League play.

“It’s early,” Rancho coach Michelle Van Buren said. “I tell the girls that it’s one game at a time. They don’t ever look ahead. It’s the game we’re playing. We just focus on the next game.

“Every game, the kids make a mistake or I see something that needs improving, we go and we practice that.”

It’s a good philosophy, especially considering the Rams (11-7, 7-0) almost watched their 4-0 lead slip away.

Las Vegas (5-7, 5-2) got a two-out RBI single from Jenice Gutierrez in the fifth inning, then put the first four batters of the sixth inning on base to trim the lead to 4-2.

Marlett got a strikeout and two groundouts — the first driving home a run — to escape the threat.

Rancho then tacked on two unearned runs in the seventh on two walks, two errors and a single.

The Rams had only four hits and hit into three double plays, but made the Wildcats pay for their mistakes.

A walk, a hit batter and a misplayed line drive led to a run in the first inning, and two errors in the third opened the door for three runs.

“It’s fundamentals, and in practice, we’ve been working on pressure situations where the girls have to come up with a big play or a big hit,” Van Buren said.

Marlett had two hits and kept her defense in the game by throwing strikes consistently. Of her 112 pitches, 78 were strikes.

Las Vegas had a runner in every inning except the seventh, but Marlett didn’t allow the Wildcats to make much solid contact and limited the damage.

“The more her ball moves, it makes it harder for (other teams) to get solid hits,” Van Buren said. “That helps our defense. She just has really good ball movement.”

Gutierrez was 2-for-4 with an RBI and Kristine Pasion 2-for-3 for Las Vegas, which slipped into a three-way tie with Chaparral and Valley for second in the Northeast.