Foothill finally solves Rancho ace, wins Sunrise Region softball title
It was no secret that Foothill’s softball team had struggled to hit against Rancho this season.
The Falcons managed just five runs on 13 hits in the teams’ first three meetings.
Yet, Foothill coach Tom Mayes wasn’t a bit surprised to see his team explode offensively Saturday.
The host Falcons racked up 33 hits in two games and stunned the Rams — 12-2 in the first game and 12-10 in the second — to win the Sunrise Region title. Foothill (23-15) will participate in the Division I state tournament, which begins Thursday at UNLV.
Rancho ace Samantha Pochop had struck out 34 Falcons in 20 innings in the first three meetings, but on Saturday, Foothill didn’t bite on Pochop’s normally lethal riseball and picked on her curveball, often slicing it to the opposite field for hits.
“Mentally, they knew they could do it,” Mayes said. “We saw some similar speed and high stuff from Coronado’s pitcher (on Friday), so that may have helped a little bit. They all talked about it, and they knew that if she got a strike on us, she was going to try to come in high, then try to keep it low and away.”
Foothill pounded 17 hits off Pochop in the first game, then collected 16 more against Kat Anthony and Pochop in a wild second game.
“We struggled so much in the regular season, and we fought so much, that it just came to the point where we were like a sleeping giant, and we just woke up,” said junior first baseman Sarah Maddox, who went 6-for-8 with three doubles, two home runs, four runs and seven RBIs in the two games.
Rancho built leads of 4-0 and 6-2 in the winner-take-all second game before the Falcons rallied with five runs on five hits in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Foothill put the first five runners on base in the inning and brought all five home to take a 7-6 lead.
But Rancho (26-9) fought back to tie the game on Yvette Sanchez’s one-out single in the sixth. Kayla Coles followed with an RBI single, and Jahnae Davis-Houston hit a two-run inside-the-park home run into the right-field corner to give the Rams a 10-7 lead.
The Falcons went back to work in the bottom of the inning, cutting the lead to 10-8 on Kaitlyn Enzweiler’s RBI single. Maddox started a two-out rally with a game-tying two-run home run, and after a Rancho error kept the inning alive, Daryan Meade and Hannah Stevens each added an RBI single to put Foothill ahead 12-10.
Kayla King, who pitched the distance in the opener, retired the side in order in the seventh to complete her second win of the day.
SUNSET REGION
Palo Verde softball coach Kelly Glass is quick to describe Lauren Oxford as someone who always smiles.
She had plenty of reasons to smile Saturday.
The senior third baseman had three of her team’s six hits and drove in the game’s only run as the defending state champion Panthers topped archrival Centennial 1-0 to win the Sunset Region tournament at Foothill.
“She’s just always positive,” said Glass, whose team advances to the state tournament. “She smiles no matter what. Not to say that they all didn’t want it, but she just wanted it today.”
With hits at a premium in a pitchers’ duel, Oxford had three quality at-bats, singling to right field after fouling off two 1-and-2 pitches in the second inning, then ripping doubles on the first pitch of her next two at-bats.
“I just wanted to swing at the first good pitch I saw,” Oxford said.
Oxford’s double into the left-field corner in the fourth inning came one pitch after Dejanae Gage had doubled into the gap in right center, and it scored Gage with the only run Palo Verde needed.
Palo Verde (31-8) had just six hits, a walk and a hit batsman against Centennial pitcher Cheyenne Cudahy.
Panthers senior Kelsea Sweeney spun a two-hitter and hit one batter.
It was a sharp contrast to the last time the teams played, when Palo Verde outlasted the Bulldogs 13-10 in eight innings and the teams combined for 30 hits and 12 errors.
“Both teams just got better,” Glass said. “They played cleaner softball, and we played cleaner softball.”
Sweeney made sure the Bulldogs (25-14) never threatened to score. She struck out seven and allowed only one runner to reach second base.
Centennial will face Rancho in a state tournament play-in game at 3:30 p.m. Monday at Bishop Gorman.
DIVISION I-A
It took 11 innings for Faith Lutheran’s softball team to finally solve Sierra Vista ace Kalei Watkins Saturday in the Division I-A Southern League tournament.
But once the Crusaders broke through in the first game, they were unstoppable in the finale.
After winning the first game by scoring three runs in the 11th to upend the top-seeded Mountain Lions 4-1, the host Crusaders erupted for seven runs in the first inning and cruised to a 15-3 win in the second game to take the tournament title.
Both teams will head to the Division I-A state tournament, which starts Thursday at Bishop Gorman.
Faith Lutheran was 0-3 against Sierra Vista this season and faced the task of having to defeat the Mountain Lions twice to win the championship.
But after edging Sierra Vista in the 2½-hour opener, Crusaders shortstop Mosie Foley provided the early knockout blow in the first inning of the second game.
Foley pounded a three-run homer over the left-field fence to erase Sierra Vista’s 2-0 lead, and the Crusaders never trailed again.
Foley added a solo shot in the second and finished the game 3-for-3 with four RBIs.
“We were just pumped and ready and come out and play,” she said. “As soon as we won the first game, we were ready to go right away.”
Faith Lutheran coach John Chilman said finally getting to Watkins at the end of the first game boosted the Crusaders’ morale.
“Our players were confident that if we could get through the first game, the second game was ours. It looked like Sierra Vista was pretty tired out,” Chilman said. “(Watkins) is just a great pitcher. I think she is the best player in Division I-A. If we had to play the second game tomorrow, it probably would have been another dogfight like the first one.”
Contact reporter Bartt Davis at bdavis@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5230.
