Arbor View rallies, posts win over Legacy

Arbor View’s softball team hasn’t faced a lot of on-field adversity this season.

With wins in 10 of their first 11 games, and many of those by large margins, the Aggies haven’t had a ton of practice at bouncing back from costly mistakes.

Yet when the Aggies created trouble for themselves Wednesday, they had little problem recovering.

Arbor View bounced back from allowing three unearned runs in the fifth inning to score three in the seventh and post a 7-4 win at Legacy.

“We’re learning to recover,” first-year Arbor View coach Maria Yoder said.

The Aggies appeared to be cruising to their fourth straight Northwest League win before two walks and two errors by their first baseman allowed Legacy to erase a 4-1 deficit in the fifth.

The Longhorns (10-4, 3-2 Northwest) tied the game without getting a hit in the inning.

Arbor View (11-1, 4-0) got the runs back in the seventh as Amber Raab laced a one-out double to center, and Ashlyn Ames and Karli Lehr followed with singles to make it 5-4.

Letty Valenzuela’s two-out line drive was dropped and then thrown wildly by Legacy’s second baseman, allowing Ames and Lehr to score.

Ames, who threw the first four innings, returned to pitch the seventh and allowed only a one-out single to Mariah Mendoza while striking out the side.

Lehr went 3-for-4 to lead Arbor View’s 11-hit attack.

“They hit well last year (against Legacy), too, so I don’t think there was much of the intimidation factor,” Yoder said.

Raab, Valenzuela and Ames each added two hits, and Chelsa Baca drilled a 250-foot three-run homer to left field in the third inning for the Aggies, whose four league wins all have come against teams expected to contend for playoff spots.

“Our biggest battle out of the gate, we knew, would be having Palo (Verde) and Centennial back to back,” Yoder said. “Having come through Cimarron (on Monday) with a win and now Legacy, I think the girls feel, too, that we’re set up to keep moving forward.”