Tag: high school softball

EL DORADO HILLS – Kaylee Davis was exhausted after eight innings of baking under the relentless El Dorado Hills sun, throwing pitches to a stacked Oak Ridge lineup in a back-and-forth NorCal Division I championship game. 

But even while Amador Valley’s star was battling a cold that sapped her of even more strength, the junior used every bit of energy and willpower she had left on Saturday to barrel up a ball in the ninth inning and hammer a two-run homer over the fence. 

The blast provided the winning runs in Amador Valley’s 13-11 championship victory, Davis’ swing securing and punctuating one of the great softball playoff runs in the history of the state. 

“This is one of the most roller-coaster games I’ve ever played,” Davis said. “We didn’t really expect to be here. This is such a shock and we were just so excited.”

The eighth-seeded Dons had stunned the softball community – and themselves – on Tuesday by shocking undefeated St. Francis 4-1 in Mountain View, and then rolled past fourth-seeded Clovis North 7-2 in the Central Valley on Thursday. 

After those unlikely victories and hundreds of miles traveled, the Dons rightfully began to wonder, “Why not us?”

“This team had come so, so far,” senior Taylor Oxe said. “Going and beating St. Francis when they were 28-0, and then going and beating Clovis North, we knew we could do it.”

It was the kind of week movies are made of, but in order to complete their storybook run, the Dons had to survive one final test in an epic championship game.

The marathon matchup featured nine lead changes, 29 hits, four home runs in extra innings, and heat so severe that the home plate umpire had to leave the game with what an Amador Valley coach described as a heat-related illness.

“We left our hearts out here on the field today,” Oxe said. 

The Dons were up 4-1 after the top of the fourth inning, but host Oak Ridge battled back to tie the game in the bottom of the frame. The Trojans then took a 7-4 lead into the top of the seventh inning, and got the visitors down to their last strike with Oxe up. 

With the championship on the line, she doubled to left to drive in one run. Emily Bull, Lauren Tran and Davis got successive hits after that to give Amador an 8-7 lead.

But after getting two quick outs, Oak Ridge strung together a walk and two singles to tie the score, with Kyden Walker singling on a hard ground ball to drive in the tying run and put a runner at third.

After Davis induced the popup to extend the game to extra innings, Amador Valley once again had two outs with the bases empty. McKenna Charbonneau got the momentum back on Amador’s side with a line drive to left. 

Mai Falcone turned that momentum into the lead when she belted a two-run homer to left. 

“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was going over (the fence),” Falcone said. “I just wanted it so bad for my team.”

Oxe seemed to, surely, secure the title for the Dons when she went back-to-back with Falcone for a solo homer and an 11-8 lead. 

Oak Ridge, which had enjoyed a bye after Whitney-Rocklin had to forfeit a semifinal game because of an ineligible player, would not quit. Emery Glaser gave the home crowd a chance to go crazy when she hit a home run to left to cut the deficit to one. 

The Trojans tied things up a few batters later when Amador Valley committed an error and allowed a runner to score, but Davis once again got out of the jam to strand the winning run at second. 

“Kaylee, this is the last game, so go out there and give me 110 percent of what you have,” Oxe told Davis on the bus ride from Pleasanton before the game. “Just put your heart on that field, because we will make plays for you, and will hit when you need us to.”

Davis gave the Dons the lead for the last time in the ninth inning, and then watched as Bull took over in relief and closed out the championship with three popups. 

“Emily came out and just shut them down,” Davis said.

Amador Valley coach Courtney Hennings had been a part of some phenomenal Dons teams in the early-2010s, but none of them had an opportunity to play past the sectional playoffs. 

“As an Amador alumni, I wish we had this in the past, and it is so exciting to come back and guide these girls to this next level,” Henning said. “It’s an amazing experience.”

Amador Valley finished 19-11. 

As several Dons noted after the game, their magical run to regional hardware began long before NorCal play. 

Amador Valley finished third in the East Bay Athletic League and lost in the semifinals of the league playoffs. 

Seeded fourth in the North Coast Section Division I bracket, the Dons upset defending champion and top seed California in the semifinals and then beat higher-seeded College Park in the final to win the program’s fifth section title. 

The team that upset second-seeded Archbishop Mitty in the NorCal Division I softball playoffs this week will have to forfeit its semifinal game. 

Seventh-seeded Whitney-Rocklin, which defeated the Monarchs 2-0 on Tuesday in San Jose, played an ineligible player during the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs.

Sixth-seeded Oak Ridge, which was scheduled to play host to Whitney on Thursday, will have a bye into the title game on Saturday.

Oak Ridge will face Thursday’s winner between eighth-seeded Amador Valley and fourth-seeded Clovis North. 

CIF spokesperson Rebecca Brutlag told the Bay Area News Group on Thursday that MItty “understands that it’s an unfortunate situation” and that the San Jose school has not petitioned to take Whitney’s place in the semifinal. 

“The brackets have already been seeded,” Brutlag added. “So you can’t go back in time and what would happen or what wouldn’t happen, so the bracket stands as it is.”

SAN JOSE — Jason Yco couldn’t hold back his emotions after Branham’s 4-3 loss to Monterey on Thursday. 

The usually mild-mannered, soft-spoken head coach shed tears when asked what this season meant to him in a postgame interview following the Bruins’ defeat in the Central Coast Section Division I semifinals. 

“They just competed all year,” Yco said standing at MacDonald high school in San Jose. “They were never afraid of anything. This team was always ready for the moment. Every practice they had the music going, dancing and having fun. They bonded playing the game with passion and love. I’m just super proud of that.” 

Seven-seeded Branham pushed No. 3 Monterey – the back-to-back CCS Division II champions – to the brink. But in the end, the Dores tapped into their championship experience to close out the Bruins late and advance to a third consecutive section title game, where they will face No. 4 Salinas on Saturday at West Valley College. 

Monterey sophomore Ryanna Elliott hit a three-run homer. Ella Myers was 2 for 3, had an RBI and pitched a complete game as she struck out five batters. 

Branham senior left fielder Alexis Bojorquez-Nava had two hits and an RBI. 

“It was tough because that was a really good ball club,” said Monterey coach Michael Royster. “Coming up here and running with these guys was not easy.”

Both teams were tied at one after two innings, but it felt like the Dores were going to blow the game open after the third. 

With two outs and two runners on, Elliott smacked a fastball which – just barely – sailed over the center field wall to give Monterey a 4-1 lead. 

“When she hit that shot, I was like, ‘we’re scoring,’” Royster said. “But when it hit the top of the wall and bounced over,  I said, ‘Oh my gosh that’s a three-run shot.’ It was exciting.”

Meanwhile, Myers’ fastball gave Branham hitters fits as she allowed just one hit in the first four innings. Branham’s first run of the game came on a fielding error in the second inning. 

But the Bruins got going in the fifth by an unusual interaction with the home plate umpire. 

Early in the fifth inning, Branham’s coaches were told the team would be handed a delay of game warning if players in the dugout continued to bang on the dugout fence while cheering. 

The Bruins and their fans took exception to that and only got louder as the game progressed. 

“When the umpire came over, we felt like we were getting to them,” Yco said.

Bojorquez-Nava added, “Our coaches just told us to be louder. Our whole thing with our team is to talk because when we do, we play even better. Everyone was just more hype and energetic.”

In the at-bat after Branham’s conversation with the home plate judge, Bojorquez-Nava doubled and brought home Kaliya Yco to cut the Monterey lead to two runs. 

After a slow start, Branham pitcher Jacqueline Connolly Hojas ended her time in the pitcher’s circle allowing one hit while striking out two in her final three innings pitched. 

With the season on the line, Bojorquez-Nava started the seventh hitting a lead-off double. 

In the next at-bat, senior Abigail Fales hit what looked like a single that just missed the glove of Monterey center fielder Jordyn McGrit in center field as Bojorquez-Nava advanced to third base. But after the officiating crew got together, the umpires ruled Elliott caught the ball for the first out of the inning and allowed Bojorquez-Nava to advance to third on a tag up. 

“That catch was a shoestringer,” Royster said. “That’s why I came out of the dugout because I thought the runner on second left early and I was trying to get that second out.”

Bojorquez-Nava eventually reached home later in the inning on a ground out to make the score 4-3, but that was the last run Branham scored. The game ended when Monterey caught a fly ball to center field, denying Branham’s hopes of making it to its first section title game in school history.