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).