Softball: CdM steps up in the sixth
Softball is supposed to be a simple game.
The pitcher delivers the ball to home plate, where a batter awaits the offering and tries to hit it.
Perhaps it’s just the nature of rivalry games, but one play was difficult to explain in Thursday’s rendition of the Battle of the Bay.
With the bases loaded and one out in the sixth, Kira Delgadillo stepped into the right-handed batter’s box. Newport Harbor pitcher Samantha Del Toro had walked the previous two batters, and a continued fit of wildness led to the game’s defining play.
On a 2-1 count, Del Toro’s pitch was thrown behind Delgadillo. The Sea Kings second baseman ducked to get out of the way, but the ball hit the tip of her bat.
It rolled into the field of play, and all seemed to take a moment to comprehend what had occurred. All three runners got a late break on the play, and the pitcher and catcher did not move toward the ball.
Then, all at once, the carousel was set in motion. Delgadillo ran toward first, Amerys Barshtak broke for home, and Del Toro closed in on the grounder.
When the play had concluded, Barshtak had scored the tying run, part of a four-run sixth inning that sent Corona del Mar to an 8-6 victory over host Newport Harbor in the teams’ final game of the Savanna Showcase.
“I wasn’t looking to bunt the ball,” Delgadillo said of making contact while she was trying to get out of the way. “It was in the moment. I was just like, ‘Well, that just happened.’ I’m glad that happened because it got the [tying run] in.”
Where Delgadillo recalled her mind going blank in the moment, Del Toro (2-3) said her head was full of thoughts as the play progressed. In the end, she made the sure play.
“I thought it was foul, so I was just staring at it,” the Sailors starter said. “Everyone was frozen, and I didn’t think there was a runner coming home. I just wanted to get an out. I could have gotten the out at home, but I just wanted to get an out.”
The inning before, Del Toro had temporarily saved her own skin. Since it was a tournament, the game was played with a time limit. A new inning could not begin after an hour and 30 minutes, and the game was pushing that threshold when Newport Harbor (2-4) came to bat down 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth.
After a double play was turned by Sea Kings shortstop Brooke Franson, the Sailors were down to potentially their last out. Angelina Alvarez and Leah Freeman reached on infield hits, and Del Toro drove a 3-1 pitch up the middle to score the tying runs.
Newport Harbor put together five consecutive hits with two outs. Another run scored on a single by Claire Austin, and Kendall Machado’s double gave the Sailors a 6-4 edge.
The Sailors had been up against the clock as well as the scoreboard, and ironically, it was the clock that became the enemy at the end of the inning.
“If we could have kept that [rally] going for three more minutes, the game would have been over, and we would have won it by two runs,” Sailors coach Tony Qualin said.
“It doesn’t always work out the way that you want it to, but there were college coaches here, and they were very impressed with how the girls fought.”
Corona del Mar (4-3) struck back with its own four-run inning. The go-ahead runs scored on an error by Freeman at third base.
“Honestly, I didn’t know that the game was almost over,” said Franson. “I thought that we still had time left. I was still expecting to keep playing, so I didn’t suspect anything bad when they scored.
“I just thought that we were going to come back. I believed in us.”
Franson went two for two with an RBI-triple and two walks. Raine Finley and Lauren Oberreiter also had two hits for Corona del Mar, and Sophia Rhee added a two-run double in the fourth.
Mallory McCrane (4-0), the Sea Kings’ starter, was grateful for the run support following a rough inning. She allowed a two-out hit to Diana Surber in the sixth, but she got Alvarez to ground out to end it.
“It felt really good because when I went back out there, I didn’t have all of the pressure on me,” McCrane said. “That’s a big thing in pitching is that you are pressuring yourself, so you have to learn to control it, relax, and throw strikes.”
Austin went two for three with a two-run single in the first. Alvarez had three infield hits, and Surber and Freeman each had two hits for Newport Harbor.
Nonleague
Corona del Mar 8, Newport Harbor 6
SCORE BY INNINGS
CdM 002 204 – 8 9 3
NH 200 040 – 6 13 3
McCrane and Oberreiter, Delgadillo (5); Del Toro and De La Rosa. W – McCrane, 4-0. L – Del Toro, 2-3. 2B – Rhee (CdM), Finley (CdM), Machado (NH). 3B – Franson (CdM).
Twitter: @ProfessorTurner
