Pitch Perfect

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Perfection is seldom achieved at any level in any sport, but last Thursday afternoon at Stadium by the Sea is a day Briana Vasquez will not soon forget. The Dolphins’ senior pitcher faced 15 Hamilton batters and not one of them reached base—a remarkable feat considering how many innings the University of La Verne commit has logged in the circle this season.

Vasquez was “in the zone” from the start and finished with 13 strikeouts in a game that was called after five innings with the Dolphins ahead 10-0. The only balls the Yankees managed to put into play were a lazy fly to center in the second and a slow roller back to Vasquez, which she flipped to first base for the first out of the fourth. Along the way, she surpassed the 100-strikeout mark for the season, but then who is counting?

“I don’t really focus on the number of strikeouts I get because I have great teammates behind me and they have my back,” she said. “Sometimes you can tell warming up that you’ve got good command.”

The dominating performance was a confidence booster after Vasquez threw 149 pitches in a heartbreaking last-inning defeat to archrival Venice three days earlier.

“You don’t feel it until after the game but my arm was sore so I took the next two days off [after Venice] so I’d be ready for today,” she said.

Vasquez needed 60 pitches to complete the masterpiece, which earned her hugs and high-fives from her teammates and the game ball from coach Manny Flores.

“It’s just Bri being Bri,” Flores said.

Vasquez nearly made it back-to-back perfectos, surrendering only a single and striking out 14 batters in another 10-0 shutout Monday, this time against University. She also flirted with perfection April 3 in a 15-0 victory over visiting Fairfax before settling for a one-hitter with nine punch-outs while tossing a mere 54 pitches. On April 11 she and Stella Honda combined to no-hit LACES (Honda pitched the first three innings, Vasquez the last two). That was three days after Vasquez struck out 12 of 18 batters in a two-hitter against Westchester.

Perhaps her best outing all season came in a game in which she did not get the decision when she held a potent Mira Costa lineup to two hits and fanned nine Mustangs in a 0-0 tie on March 9 at the TNT Classic in Torrance.

Palisades has three league games left, beginning today at Fairfax, and would clinch second place outright if it is able to win all three.