Softball: Mesa’s season comes to an end
Joseph Boo
HUNTINGTON BEACH - It was a bittersweet ending to quite a season
for Costa Mesa High’s softball team, when it fell to host Ocean View,
4-1, in a CIF Southern Section Division IV Wild Card game Wednesday
afternoon.
“The seniors have some mending to do,” Costa Mesa Sharon Uhl said of
Brooke Shanley, Kelly Daub, Nicole Spunaugle, Kaite Chapman, Lacey Ferris
and Michelle Nguyen. “They’re pretty down, but they have no reason to
be.”
Indeed, Mesa (9-12 from the Pacific Coast League) achieved its goal of
reaching its first CIF playoff in four years. The Mustangs have never won
a playoff game in school history.
“We’ll just have to try next year,” Uhl said, “but we lose a lot with the
seniors. Not just key players, but team leadership too.”
Unfortunately for the Mustangs, it caught Ocean View, the No. 3 team from
the Golden West League and 9-17 overall, in a hitting mood. The Seahawks
didn’t give Mesa an easy out, and they only went down in order once.
Mesa tied the game, 1-1, in the second inning after senior Nicole
Spunaugle singled in Fernanda Velasco.
But in the third inning, Ocean View loaded the bases with no outs and
Ashley Kinney had a 10 minute at-bat that summed up the whole game.
She fouled off over 10 pitches before milking a walk that drove in the
go-ahead run. Two outs later, an RBI single gave the Seahawks a 3-1 lead.
“They’re a great hitting team,” Uhl said of Ocean View. “They got the big
hits with the bases loaded, and we didn’t. That pretty much tells the
whole story.”
The Mustangs squandered a no-out bases-loaded situation in the fifth.
Spunaugle and Britney Newby led with with singles, and Daub followed up
with a perfect bunt hit. But they were left at their respective bases.
Mesa had another great chance in the sixth. Erica Melcer hit a one-out
double, and Sandra Franco came into pinch-run. The next batter, Sarah
Watkins, hit a tough-play grounder to the shortstop who threw to third.
Franco slid in and the umpire ruled her safe at third, but after a late
conference, they changed the call.
That proved costly as Spunaugle hit her third single of the day, one that
failed to score anyone.
Ocean View added an insurance run in the sixth to make the score, 4-1,
and earn a trip to face No. 2 seed Harvard-Westlake. Daub laid down a
bunt single in the seventh and stole second as Mesa’s last baserunner of
the year.
CIF SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISION IV PLAYOFFS
Wild Card
Ocean View 4, Costa Mesa 1
Costa Mesa 010 000 0 - 1 8 0 Ocean View 102 001 x - 4 7 2
Shanley and Watkins; Cruz and Rivera. W - Cruz. L - Shanley. 2B - Melcer
(CM), Hatcher (OV).
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