Huntington Beach softball can’t close out Los Alamitos in Sunset League finale
LOS ALAMITOS — A surge late in the season had the Huntington Beach High softball team in the driver’s seat.
Behind a 13-game winning streak over the past three weeks, the Oilers had climbed the CIF Southern Section Division 1 rankings, appearing at No. 1 for the first time all season.
With only the regular season finale remaining, Huntington Beach held ace in hand — as it often does with two-way star Zoe Prystajko in the circle — with a chance to control its destiny in the Sunset League and solidify its playoff seeding.
Archrival Los Alamitos endeavored to perhaps make the postseason road tougher.
The third-ranked Griffins stole victory from the jaws of defeat, authoring a last at-bat comeback before Taryn Clements’ squeeze bunt with two strikes scored Julie Holcomb for a walk-off 5-4 win in eight innings on Monday at Los Alamitos High.
“I feel like squeezes you always try to get down to first because if it goes to third, they can just tag the runner,” Clements said. “Third base usually plays more up than the first baseman. It was an outside pitch. I was just trying to get it fair.”
The celebration included a bath in blue Gatorade for Los Alamitos coach Rob Weil as the team met in left field after the game.
“I think we all learned from our mistakes in the first game and even just playing them in earlier years,” Holcomb said, referencing a 3-2 loss at Huntington Beach on April 18. “We were just not going to let them beat us again. I think it really lit a fire under our butt this time, and we were not going to let them take that again. I just love the fight that this team always has until the very end.”
It was, at times, an effectively wild outing for Prystajko. Three walks came around to score against her, but she also stranded 11 base runners, six of which were left in scoring position. Prystajko allowed five runs, seven hits, seven walks and hit four batters in going the distance. She also recorded 12 strikeouts.
Her counterpart, Berkley Vance, held the Oilers to four runs (three earned) on five hits. She struck out five and walked none.
Los Alamitos (22-3, 9-1), which would win the Sunset League outright with wins over Edison and Corona del Mar to close the week, opened the scoring with two runs in the second without a ball leaving the infield. Kalie Matsuno drew a bases-loaded walk, and Holcomb brought in another run with an infield hit.
Huntington Beach (22-5, 10-2) answered in the next half inning. Macy Fuller and Sophia Knight reached on infield hits. Then Morgan Drotter had a hit taken away when a ball that dropped in front of a diving Holcomb in center field turned into a fielder’s choice.
With two outs, Prystajko made sure the rally paid off, driving a three-run home run to the opposite field in right to lift the Oilers to a 3-2 lead.
“It was nice to see her regroup,” Huntington Beach coach Jeff Forsberg said of Prystajko. “It’s tough to pitch and hit at this level. We rely on her to strike 18 kids out, and we rely on her to hit home runs. It’s hard. It’s tough. She’s mentally capable of doing it, but it’s a tough skill. Most people can’t do it.”
Again, a lead would be short-lived, as Alivia Magallanes, a courtesy runner for the catcher, scored on Malayna Terrones’ single through the hole at second to tie the score at 3-3 in the bottom of the third.
Magallanes’ speed was a threat all game, with catcher Allyssa Ramos reaching base five times — on three walks (two intentional) and twice being hit by a pitch.
Huntington Beach shortstop Liah Lummus doubled and scored following consecutive errors committed by the Griffins’ infield in the sixth, as the Oilers regained the lead at 4-3.
The drama built to a crescendo from there. Prystajko stranded two in scoring position when Clements struck out on a check swing to end the sixth.
Then in their final at-bat and down to their last out, it was Magallanes — on as a pinch runner for Terrones — who would cross home plate after taking two bags on defensive indifference. Matsuno stuck the bat out and dropped a single that landed at the edge of the outfield grass just over the outstretched glove of second baseman Carter Mello.
“There was just a lot of emotion going on during that,” Matsuno said. “My heart was beating very, very fast. It felt really good.”
Forsberg was not about to lose sight of the fact that the Oilers have been in the thick of the league race for several years in a row, but they remain in pursuit of a trip to the CIF finals.
“In 2019, we go into Edison, we lose in the last inning on a wild pitch,” Forsberg said. “We could have won first. We ended up fourth, barely got into the playoffs, and then we went all the way to the semis. Then 2020 was COVID, and then we won league two years in a row. Here, you catch the ball, you win league.
“Theoretically, this team could have won league five years in a row, which is crazy. … You’re a wild pitch and a little flare from winning five in a row. But then on the other hand, these kids need to understand that last year, we beat [Los Alamitos] three times, beat them here twice — walked out of here, everybody was all excited and stuff — and then those guys play five solid games and get to the finals, and we can’t score a run in our game, and we’re one and out, so everybody forgets about all the success here.”
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