SOFTBALL ROUNDUP : Marina Turns Back Los Alamitos in 14th

The last time they met, Marina and Los Alamitos went 22 innings in a playoff game. And the highly anticipated first Sunset League meeting between the two county powers was everything that could be expected.

There was terrific defense and pitching. There was slugging. And ultimately, there was anguish.

Fourth-ranked Marina beat No. 8 Los Alamitos, 2-1, in 14 innings Tuesday, re-establishing some momentum after struggling through the season’s early going.

The Vikings (8-3, 1-0 in league) played the kind of defense that makes Marcy Crouch (7-2) one of the county’s best pitchers. They also got a spark from an unlikely source, freshman Alicia Velazquez, playing in her second game.

Velazquez’s one-out triple set the stage for the most crushing of defeats for Griffin pitcher Dana Olmstead (4-3). Olmstead induced Angela Burke to bounce back to the mound, froze Velazquez at third, and then threw the ball over the first baseman’s head. Olmstead struck out the next batter for what would have been the third out.

“I did exactly what I was trying to get her to do,” Olmstead said, “(but) I rushed it.”

It made a winner of Marina, which lost two of its previous three games because of poor defense, and a star of Velazquez, whose older sister, Lynette, has been one of the county’s best hitters.

“Getting that triple is what this team needed,” Marina Coach Shelly Luth said. “We needed someone besides one of the regular stars to step up and do it.”

Marina scored in the first against Mandy Rockwell, who allowed her first earned run of the year. Lynette Velazquez singled, took second on a wild pitch and scored on Heather Williams’ single. Williams also doubled and tripled.

Los Alamitos (12-3, 0-1) answered in the bottom of the fifth. Jennifer Slaney singled, took second on a bunt and scored on Dinha Mead’s single to right field.