SAN BENITO — The Lady Greyhounds hosted the Harlingen Cardinals Monday night at Lady Greyhound Stadium, running away with a 10-0 victory that, even though one-sided, added to the rivalry between both teams.

“Harlingen is always tough,” said San Benito head coach Elias Martinez. “It’s a great rivalry and everyone brings their ‘A’ game.”

San Benito’s ‘A’ game would be reflected on the scoreboard like a report card as they lit it up evenly throughout the game, scoring two runs in each of the first, third, fifth, and sixth innings to earn the victory.

Not only did the scoreboard demonstrate the Greyhounds’ prowess on offense, it gave an insight on how well their defense played as they prevented a talented Cardinal offense from scoring.

Leading that San Benito defense was freshman pitcher Crystal Castillo, who struck out four batters on her way to a six-inning complete game shutout.

“She’s tough, she’s mentally tough and she battled all afternoon,” Martinez said of the freshman. “She got into a little bit of trouble [during the game] and got herself out of it.”

Martinez received some help from her shortstop Adrianna ‘Squirt’ Flores, who was responsible for four defensive outs, including a terrific diving grab going to her right, snagging a Lynette Hernandez line drive to help end the fifth inning.

Offensively, the Greyhounds struck early in the first inning as Flores was brought in by Mel Gonzalez, making it 1-0, followed by Dorothy Millan’s solo homerun that put San Benito up, 2-0.

The Lady Cardinals left runners on base in the first, second, third and fourth innings, not taking advantage of the opportunities they needed to score runs.

“We left too many runners on early that really hurt us,” said Harlingen head coach Lance White. “We had a lot of mental errors and it just snowballed’ from there.”

The rivalry between the two teams was not shy of controversy as the top of the third inning ended when San Benito turned a double play after a fly ball to apparently end the inning without allowing a Harlingen score.

The umpires confirmed that a Harlingen run had come in before the double play, but the runner had left early from third causing a meeting that eventually got the whole thing sorted out correctly.

However lopsided the score, there was no doubt as to the respect both teams have for each other.

“Getting ready for district, it’s a perfect game for us to go up against a quality team like that,” Martinez said.