Firing through league

COSTA MESA — Estancia High sophomore Nicole Marlborough made sure the Eagles didn’t get burned Monday.

The game against Calvary Chapel was the final regular-season game for Estancia, and a must-win to clinch the Orange Coast League title. Two days after the team held a fund-raising car wash, senior Abby Koff offered encouragement. She joked to Marlborough that she had caught too many rays at the car wash.

“I was like, ‘Nicole, I am so sunburned, man,’ ” Koff said. “ ‘I don’t want to pitch. Just keep pitching, keep pitching.’ Then I was like, ‘A little more, a little more, one more inning. My sunburn’s killing me’ ... She just kept pitching. It was nice.”

Marlborough pitched a strong six innings, helping Estancia to a 10-5 victory over Calvary Chapel at TeWinkle Park and its second straight outright league title.

Calvary Chapel dropped into a tie for second with Costa Mesa. The teams will play their final league game Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. at Costa Mesa, with second place in league and a CIF Southern Section Division IV playoff spot on the line.

Marlborough, typically a third baseman, had never pitched before this season. The longest she had gone in a game was 2 1/3 innings. But, on Monday, she stepped it up after Estancia (15-7, 7-2 in league) had lost at Costa Mesa, 11-3, on Friday in the Eagles’ first try at clinching the title.

Koff did come in to finish the game in the seventh inning, but not before Marlborough had given up just one earned run to Calvary (12-9, 5-3) through the first six innings. She was charged with two runs in the seventh.

“I probably pitched the best I’ve ever pitched,” said Marlborough, who won her first game of the year. “We really wanted to pull it out after we got killed by Mesa. We got pretty excited.”

Estancia jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third inning. Amy Hartwell’s single to left field scored fellow sophomore Jill Beck, and Hartwell went to second on an error and scored on Koff’s single to center.

Senior catcher Haylee Whitney followed with an infield single past the mound, and an errant throw to first allowed Koff to score the third run.

“It was so important,” said Whitney, who was three for four with two RBIs, of the title-clinching win. “On the bus ride here, everyone was so focused. We all talked and everyone had this look on their face. We just knew we’d do really good today.”

Calvary Chapel came back in the fourth inning, when a two-out Estancia outfield error allowed two runs to score. But Estancia, unfazed, responded with six more runs in the top of the fifth. Leading off the inning, Courtney Ulrich struck out but reached on a passed ball. Hartwell, Taylor West, Whitney and Marlborough all followed with RBI singles.

“We took the momentum right back and that started with Courtney’s at-bat,” Coach Tommy Rausch said. “She was down 0-2, and found a way to get on base. That changed the momentum for us. We loaded [the bases] up and started singling them in. That was huge.”

Estancia will find out its first-round CIF Southern Section Division IV playoff opponent on Monday.

Orange Coast League

Estancia 10, Calvary Chapel 5

SCORE BY INNINGS

Marlborough, Koff (7) and Whitney; Gonzales, Rickerts (5) and Ginnis, Rambo (5). W – Marlborough, 1-0. L – Gonzales, 4-4. 2B – Hartwell (E).

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or matthew.szabo@latimes.com.