El Camino Real Mutes Granada Hills Bats, 1-0 : Girls’ softball: Jones pitches three-hitter and Conquistadores need only an unearned run in first.

GRANADA HILLS — Members of the Granada Hills High softball team clicked their bats together in superstitious rhythm several times Wednesday afternoon in the hope of producing some hits.

In the end, it was the only noise the Highlander bats made all day.

El Camino Real pitcher Tami Jones allowed only three hits and the Conquistadores used a first-inning unearned run to edge Granada Hills, 1-0, in a Northwest Valley Conference game.

Granada Hills pitcher Jessica Creith (7-5) also allowed only three hits, and she retired the last 14 batters she faced. But the first-inning run, produced by two hits and a dropped fly ball by left fielder Krissy Begley, stood up as the game-winner for El Camino Real (12-1, 4-0).

“You make errors, you lose games,” said Granada Hills Coach Carolyn Gunny with disgust. “We opened the door and they walked in.”

Yet El Camino Real never slammed it shut on Granada Hills (7-5, 2-2), which had its opportunities to tie the score. The Highlanders had runners at first and second in the third and sixth innings but couldn’t convert.

Some of the flat bats might have been because of anxiety. The Highlanders lost to El Camino Real by one run in last season’s City Section 4-A Division quarterfinal, but in attempting to erase the past they relived it.

“We played tough after our jitters,” Gunny said. “Jessica is a tough pitcher.”

And a tough-luck pitcher, as well. Of the 12 runs that Creith, a junior, has allowed this season, only one has been earned.

Jones, a junior in her first year as a pitcher, raised her record to 9-1.

“She’s getting better and better,” El Camino Real Coach Neils Ludlow said.

As are the Conquistadores’ conference hopes.

“It puts us in a good position,” Ludlow said.