Owls Clinch Outright WSC Blue Title With Win at LA Valley

Van Nuys, CA -- The Citrus College Softball team clinched the outright Western State Conference Blue Division Championship on Thursday afternoon. With an 8-6 victory over host Los Angeles Valley College, the Owls won their second straight conference title and third in program history with two games left to go.

Citrus got an early jump on things in the game, scoring three runs in the top of the first. The Owls would add two more in the top of the fifth, before Valley made it a game with three in the bottom of the sixth to make it 5-3. Citrus added three more scores in the top of the seventh, and would need all of them as the Monarchs scored three in the bottom half of the inning, before the Owls escaped trouble with the 8-6 win.

In the win, sophomore Megan Troutman went 3 for 4 with two runs scored and an RBI. Sophomore Valerie Velasquez was 2 for 4 with three RBI's, while freshman Kaitlyn Garza and Autumn Bartholomy also both went 2 for 4. Freshman pitcher Anissa Gallegos, just the second 20 game winner for the Owls in the last decade, won her 22nd game of the season, with a complete game, in which she struck out three batters.

With the win, Citrus improves to 28-9 overall and 16-3 in WSC Blue play. The Owls have two games remaining on their regular season schedule, a conference double-header at Los Angeles Mission College on Tuesday afternoon. First pitch of game one is set for 1:00 PM.