Carson softball wins Lassen Tournament

Cassie Vondrak's Most Valuable Player performance helped lead the Carson High softball team to the title in the Lassen (Calif.) Tournament on Saturday.

CHS won three games on Saturday and finished the event 6-0. On Saturday, Carson beat Douglas 17-6 in the quarterfinals, Lassen 13-1 in the semifinals and Battle Mountain 11-2 in the finals.

Battle Mountain beat Manogue to reach the finals. Vondrak was the winning pitcher in the last two games, not allowing an earned run, and also helped her cause at the plate. Christa Casci and Abby Rankl also made the all-tournament team for Carson.

"The bats are as strong as I've ever seen them," Carson coach Scott Vickrey said. "They played really good ball. I'm pretty proud of them."

Against Douglas, Nikki Keller was the winning pitcher, allowing two earned runs in the game that was called after four innings due to the mercy rule. Carson scored seven runs in the third inning to take a 9-0 lead.

Candice Rutledge singled, Dacey Hassey hit an RBI single, Daria Leid singled, Loretta Cagle hit an RBI sacrifice fly and Casci belted a three-run home run to cap the rally.

After Douglas scored four unearned runs in the bottom of the third to close to within 9-4, Carson broke the game open with eight runs in the fourth to make it 17-4. Rankl had a two-run double and Hassey had an RBI single during the rally.

Against Lassen, Carson took a 5-0 lead in the first as Casci, Rankl and Hassey all singled, Vondrak hit a two-run double, Keller had an RBI single and Kaitlin Burroughs hit an RBI triple during the rally. The Senators went up 8-0 in the second on the strength of Rutledge's single and Keller's two-run singled.

Carson went up 13-0 in the third on the strength of singles by Rutledge and Burroughs and RBI singles by Casci, Hassey and Keller.

Vondrak struck out six and allowed three hits and also had five RBI. Keller was 3-for-3 with four RBI and Burroughs and Rutledge each went 2-for-3.

Against Battle Mountain, Vondrak hit a three-run homer in the first to make it 3-0. In the second, Burroughs tripled and scored on Casci's squeeze bunt to make it 4-1. In the fourth, after Burroughs stole second, she scored on Leid's single to make it 5-2.

Carson broke it open in the sixth, scoring five runs to make it 10-2. Burroughs and Sarah Evans singled and a run scored on Krista Mattice's squeeze bunt.

Mattice reached on a bunt single on the play. After Rutledge, who had two hits, singled, Rankl capped the rally with a three-run home run. Vondrak struck out six and allowed three hits.