SAN JOSE – There were two outs in the bottom of the seventh and a tied score. Extra innings were beckoning.
Katelynn Dilbeck had another idea. The senior catcher ripped a line-drive double to left field, and Lea Crawford scored from second to send the home crowd into a frenzy as Willow Glen defeated Tracy 3-2 Thursday in a Northern California Division II softball semifinal.
“That’s every softball player’s dream,” Dilbeck said. “It was an inside pitch and I saw that pitch pretty well. It was the pitch I was waiting for.”
The Rams are now one win away from repeating as NorCal Division II champions.
“We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the season,” said Dilbeck, who had three hits in four at-bats.. “I’m proud of where we’ve come and we’re not done yet.”
Tracy (25-5-1) took an early lead with two runs in the top of the third on one hit, two walks, a hit batter and an error.
But Willow Glen (24-7) answered with two runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning.
Freshman center fielder and spark-plug leadoff hitter Catalina Medina started it off with a single. Dilbeck followed with a single to left. Then Alanna Clincy ripped an opposite-field liner that the Tracy right fielder got a glove on, but could not secure. The ball fell to the ground, two runs scored and Clincy pulled into third base with a triple.
So it was 2-2 after three and it stayed that way until Dilbeck’s walk-off in the seventh.
Clincy kept the visitors from scoring again while pitching out of several jams. She went the full seven innings and allowed only that one third-inning hit, while walking six and striking out five.
“I was definitely not on,” Clincy said. “I’d say it was one of my worst pitching performances.”
Clincy, a right-handed sophomore, improved to 16-5 on the season. In 125 innings she has allowed only 55 hits and struck out 193.
Last year in the NorCal final it was catcher McKenna Campbell who hit a game-winning walk-off double. This time it was the current catcher, Dilbeck, who did the same.
“I love her for that,” Clincy said. “It really helped me out. I don’t know if I could’ve gone another inning.”
No. 3 seed Willow Glen will host No. 8 Capital Christian, a 3-0 winner over Salinas in the other Division II semifinal, on Saturday at 4 p.m. with a chance to capture back-to-back NorCal titles.
“We knew we were going to be pretty close to where we were last year,” Willow Glen coach Don Spingola said. “We knew what we needed to do, we knew we needed to put the ball in play. We’re an aggressive running team and that’s how we’ve won some games. This is a team effort. Everyone contributes in different ways and that’s all we can ask for.”