MOUNTAIN VIEW – While there are few guarantees in sports, St. Francis was going to win a NorCal Division I softball quarterfinal Tuesday.
That’s because top-seeded St. Francis of Mountain View played host to No. 8 seed St. Francis of Sacramento.
The upset-minded visitors crushed solo home runs in the first and second innings, but otherwise only managed three singles off sophomore Kate Munnerlyn the rest of the way behind stellar defense as the Mountain View school advanced 8-2.
“Defense was spot on,” winning coach Mike Oakland said. “We didn’t put ourselves in a position where we were going to give up a big inning.”
The Lancers (29-2) only recorded two hits through four innings, though both cleared the fence. University of Washington-bound first baseman Sydney Stewart clobbered a two-run shot to left-center in the bottom of the first, and Siena commit Chloe Cummings put St. Francis-Mountain View up for good in the bottom of the fourth with a solo blast.
The Troubadours (26-5) couldn’t stop the bleeding in the latter stages.
St. Francis-Mountain View put up two runs in the fifth off an opposite-field home run by Minnesota-signee Jessica Oakland and an RBI double from Boston University-bound Brooke Deppiesse.
A three-run bomb by Georgetown-bound Claire Turner in the bottom of the sixth sealed the deal.
“I thought our at-bats early on paid off later,” Oakland said. “Even though they didn’t result in hits and very many runs, I felt like the amount of stress that we were able to put on their pitcher helped us later on in the game.”
No. 4 Sheldon-Sacramento 7, No. 5 Archbishop Mitty 6
When Mitty scored two runs in the top of the seventh inning to stretch its lead to four, a rematch against top-seeded St. Francis seemed inevitable.
But Sheldon had other ideas.
The Sacramento powerhouse scored five runs in the home half of the seventh to win in a walk-off, setting up its own rematch against St. Francis.
St. Francis, which beat Mitty 6-5 in nine innings Saturday for the CCS Open Division title, has two losses this season.
One was to Sheldon, 6-4 at the Livermore Stampede in April.
Tuesday, Reina Zermeno knocked in three runs and Imani Black drove in two as Sheldon (28-5) sent Mitty (26-5) to its second consecutive crushing defeat to end the season.
Baseball
Division I
No. 6 Valley Christian 7, No. 3 Whitney-Rocklin 4
Valley Christian, playing on the road in Rocklin, scored four in the fourth inning to break a 2-2 tie and went on to beat Whitney to advance to the semifinals Thursday at St. Francis.
Jacob Hudson went 3 for 4 and knocked in four runs to lead Valley, which split its regular-season West Catholic Athletic League games against St. Francis and then lost to the Lancers 2-1 in the WCAL postseason tournament final.
Hunter Fujimoto added two hits and an RBI and Jaden Bitter also drove in a run Tuesday as Valley improved to 25-7-1.
Whitney finished 28-6.
Division II
No. 2 Archbishop Mitty 3, No. 7 Clovis East 2
Antonio Cabrera’s sacrifice fly with one out in the eighth inning knocked in Jarren Advincula with the winning run as Mitty, playing at home in San Jose, celebrated a hard-fought victory over Clovis East to reach the semifinals of the NorCal playoffs.
Advincula opened the inning with a single, moved to second on a walk and advanced to third on an error.
Cabrera, who pitched a two-hitter in a 9-0 win over Branham on Saturday for the CCS Division II title, added more postseason memories with his game-ender.
Mitty (22-10) will play host to No. 6 seed McClatchy-Sacramento on Thursday.
Division V
No. 6 Berean Christian 14, No. 3 Skyline 1
In a game played at Laney College in Oakland, Berean Christian scored five runs in the first inning and five more in the second to rout Skyline.
The game was called after five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule.
Tom Reed went 4 for 4 with three RBIs, Josh Ting went 3 for 4 with three RBIs and Griffin DeRusso also drove in three runs to lead Berean Christian (19-10).
Ivver Vertulfo pitched all five innings and did not allow an earned run for the Eagles, who will play on the road against No. 2 seed Turlock Christian at Pedretti Park on Thursday.
Skyline finished 15-10-1.
Source: www.mercurynews.com