GOLDEN — Golden senior Carlie Fajardo accepted the good with the bad Saturday morning.
Fajardo hit a towering solo home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Demons a 2-0 home lead over Lakewood.
“Honestly, it was just so much fun to do that,” Fajardo said of her first home run of the season during the Demons impressive 8-0 victory. “We were only up by one run at the point. I wanted to change the momentum a little bit with a base hit. That was the best possible outcome.”
However, the senior recored a pair of outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Fajardo lined out to the pitcher to lead off the inning and popped out to second base to end what would be a 6-run inning to seal the nice win over the Tigers.
“I was super proud of my team to keep going through the line-up,” Fajardo said of the sixth inning. “In the end I wasn’t able to pull out the hit that I wanted to, but its a win in my book with what my teammates did.”
The win gives Golden (2-3 record) the chance to get back to the .500 mark next week when it has road games at Boulder and Bear Creek.
“Every time we play Lakewood we know it’s going to be a game,” Golden coach Steph Martinez said. “That was a big win for us for sure.”
Golden senior pitcher Mia Rauzi was huge in the victory. Rauzi pitched a complete-game shutout while striking out eight. Lakewood managed just four hits and only advanced two runners into scoring position.
“Right now we are just riding Mia,” Martinez said. “She is in a different kind of zone right now. It is great to see for her senior year.”
Rauzi did pick up a new routine while pitching that was on display Saturday morning.
“Over the summer I kind of gained this routine of the walk halfway to second base (between pitches),” Rauzi said. “It just keeps me in the game and allows me to think what I want to do next.”
It was the first shutout victory of the season for the Demons and the first shutout loss the Tigers (2-4) have suffered this year.
Golden’s offense broke out in the sixth inning with five hits to plate the six runs. Senior Gracie Putman had a big 2-run triple to start the scoring. Sophomore Madeline Stubenrauch ripped a 2-run single and junior Grace Corbin finished the scoring with a 2-run single.
“We had some chances early on, but couldn’t get the runs in,” Martinez said of the breakout 6-run inning in the sixth. “It took a couple of hits. I was excited about our energy that inning. A lot of good stuff happened.”
The Demons put up 10 runs in their other victory this season against another 5A Jeffco team in Dakota Ridge earlier in the week.
“After our first couple of games we’re hitting the ball better,” Rauzi said. “We have solid defense and with Carlie and I we have the pitching under control.”
Golden finished third in the 4A Jeffco League standing last year behind Wheat Ridge and state runner-up D’Evelyn. The Demons haven’t won the conference title since 2019 when Golden was the state runner-up.
“We set up a tough non-league schedule to set us up for league,” Martinez said in preparing for the 4A Jeffco League play that begins in a few weeks. “We have been preaching all year that we are going to take these non-league games to get ready for league because that is when it means the most. Games like these make us better.”
Lakewood graduated a half-dozen seniors from last year’s team that finished 18-9 and advance to the second round of the 5A state tournament.