Costa Mesa softball rolls past Corona del Mar
Costa Mesa’s 16-5 softball romp Thursday afternoon at Corona del Mar provided a big boost in confidence ahead of next week’s Orange Coast League opener.
The Mustangs (5-4) scored seven runs in the top of the first inning en route to their seventh double-digit offensive performance of the young season. Costa Mesa led by 13 before Corona del Mar (0-3) found some life near the end of its third game, halted after five innings by the 10-run mercy rule.
Megan Yat delivered two hits, scored three runs and drove in three more for the Mustangs. Joseline Cruz, MaryAnna Bijanjan, Caidlyn Lowry and Reygan Schneider scored two runs apiece, and Jaidyn Soldin threw just six balls in 49 pitches.
Costa Mesa ended a three-game losing streak to the Sea Kings as the winner topped 10 runs for the 12th time in 18 meetings in the past 14 years.
“This is a confidence-builder, for sure,” said 11th-year head coach Heather Orduna, back in charge after stepping away for two seasons in a “needed” break. “Our girls are putting in the work at practice and really just trying to translate that work into game play, and I think their mentality and having confidence in themselves and trusting us as coaches is making the biggest difference.”
A fourth straight CIF Southern Section playoff berth is the aim as league play arrives — Costa Mesa opens with home games Wednesday against Saddleback and Friday against archrival Estancia — and finding consistency is vital for a team that has won three in a row after twice letting 10-run leads slip away in one-run defeats.
“[These nonleague games have] shaken us up a little bit, but we’ve learned to get together and just play, and we’re getting our momentum,” said Yat, a senior third baseman who was on base four times and, with a two-run single in the top of the fifth, delivered the blow that led to an early finish. “Coach really put it in us that we need to focus on our jobs, just do what we know to do very well, master it, and we’re always out here to win. We’re always learning something out here.”
All nine Costa Mesa starters reached base — Cruz, who had two hits, was on the base paths five times — as the Mustangs used nine hits, 13 walks and a hit batter to keep the bases filled much of the game. Seven had runs batted in, with Lowry driving in a pair with a double in the four-run third.
There were a lot of pluses for the Sea Kings, who largely lack experience, the likes of Sydney Walls and All-CIF first baseman Makena Tomlinson aside. They had five of the game’s six extra-base hits — an opposite-field triple by Megan Martodam in the second inning; back-to-back doubles by Tomlinson and Je Anne Hendrickx (two runs) in the fourth; and Tomlinson’s three-run homer following Julia Mork’s one-out double and Alexa Rokos’ second single of the day in the fifth — after scoring just once in their first two games, in which they were outscored, 35-2.
CdM kept Costa Mesa scoreless in the second inning — the only time they’ve put up a zero in 14 defensive innings — and made plays in the outfield, to the delight and sometimes surprise of their fielders. And they found a second pitcher, with Walls coming on in the fourth for Rokos to escape a bases-loaded jam while surrendering just one run.
“Our girls are definitely improving,” said Sea Kings head coach Olga Walls, Sydney’s mother. “We’re hitting the ball. The girls are adapting to different positions on the fly. Everyone’s real positive out here. It’s been so much fun coaching them, with a lot of players who are first-year, who have never played before. I’m just super proud of them, coming from not knowing where to put a glove on to catching a fly ball in the outfield. That’s a positive.”
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