The Douglas Lady Bulldogs six game win streak was snapped Tuesday in a 4-3 Gila Regional loss to the Palo Verde Titans at the DHS softball field.

Bruce Whetten / The Daily Dispatch Douglas’ Nikki Lopez slides home just out of reach of the Palo Verde catcher in Gila Regional softball action Tuesday. The Lady Bulldogs had their six-game winning streak snapped in a 4-3 loss.

Douglas, 16-8 overall, 6-1 in league play, entered the game with a two game lead over second place Amphi.

Tuesday’s loss reduced that lead to one game with five games left in the regular season including a rematch with Palo Verde next Wednesday in Tucson.

Palo Verde led Douglas 1-0 going into the bottom of the third Tuesday when Jackie Hernandez hit a solo home run out of the park tying the game at 1-1.

Palo Verde regained the lead in the fifth with a three run rally taking a 4-1 lead.

Lina Campbell’s two run double in the bottom of the sixth scored Katie Campbell and Nikki Lopez cutting Palo Verde’s lead to 4-3.

Erika Tapia was the losing pitcher for Douglas. She went the distance gave up four runs off six hits, fanned three and walked four.

Douglas had six hits in the game. Lenei Haynes was 1 for 2 while Katie and Lina Campbell, Lopez, Jackie Gonzalez and Hernandez each were 1 for 3 with Lopez, Hernandez and Campbell each having doubles and Hernandez a home run.

Douglas’ coach Abe Grijalva said afterwards his team had a terrible practice on Monday and the old adage you play the way you practice came to fruition on Tuesday.

“We did not come to play today,” he said. “Defensively we were unable to make the routine plays.”

The coach said against a good team like Palo Verde that has the quality pitcher they have his team could not afford to make the mistakes it did and expect to win.

“Every run they scored was because of a throwing error,” he said. “These girls know they have to come ready to compete and today they didn’t do that.”

Despite the loss the coach said his team still controls its own destiny and remains on top of the Gila Region.

“We need to come ready to play every day and today we didn’t do that,” he said.

The Lady Bulldogs are at Sahuarita on Thursday for a Gila Regional game before hosting Santa Rita on Friday.

A Douglas connection

Marisela “ Chela” Romero, starting third baseman for Palo Verde who has ties to Douglas, continues her remarkable road to recovery following a near fatal accident in Mexico this past summer that left one leg shorter than the other.

Romero’s parents, Marco and Carmen, are both DHS grads having graduated in the 1980’s.

Numerous aunts and uncles from Douglas were at the game Tuesday watching Romero.

According to an April 1, 2008 story, “Scared, but determined” that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star; Romero’s left softball cleat has a quarter-inch lift.

The lift is the result of a June 25 auto accident as she and her mom, Carmen Estrada, along with several other family members were on their way to a beach vacation in San Carlos, Mexico.

According to reports Estrada tried to pass a shuttle van on a two-lane highway 30 minutes outside Hermosillo. The van swerved into the passing lane, forcing Estrada to maneuver quickly out of the way. She lost control of the vehicle, and it started to slide. The sliding turned into spinning, and the spinning into rolling. The truck rolled four times.

Romero, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected through a rear passenger window. She ended up on the side of the road, covered in sand nearly 30 feet from where the truck stopped rolling.

She said when she woke up, she was unable to move.

Romero suffered two broken femurs, sprained ankles, a concussion and road rash on her left leg and back. The left femur break was so severe that when the bone was reset, she lost nearly a quarter-inch of the leg.

Romero was first treated in Mexico where doctors inserted a metal rod in each leg running the length of each femur. They also added eight screws into her legs during seven hours of surgery. She was then transported to Tucson where she began intense physical therapy.

According to the story in the Arizona Daily Star one day last fall Romero, in a wheel chair, wheeled herself into Palo Verde softball coach Selina Heald’s office.

"She rolls herself in, in a wheelchair, and tells me she is going to be playing this year, no doubt in her mind," Heald told the Star. "I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say, 'Yeah, right,' or tell her maybe she should take the year off. She had two broken legs, can't walk yet, but she's telling me she's going to play."

Every time Romero visited Heald, the forecast brightened, the story said.

By the time the season rolled around Romero had rehabbed herself back into the pitchers circle for Palo Verde but balance problems created by the left leg injury meant Romero is no longer the pitcher she once was.

But she didn't lose the pop in her bat despite going 0 for 2 with a walk Tuesday against Douglas.

Romero drove in four of Palo Verde's first six runs this season and remains a serious threat batting in the heart of the Titans' lineup.

After Tuesday’s game wih Douglas the Palo Verde sophomore told The Daily Dispatch she about 85 percent back to where she used to be.

Romero admitted beating Douglas was a big win for Palo Verde who improves to 5-3 in league play.

Romero says she’s just glad to be playing softball once again.

Family members say seeing Chela back on the field  is incredible despite knowing all that she’s been through.