ANAHEIM — Except for one inning, when the El Modena softball team was able to take advantage of errors committed by Norco, the Vanguards couldn’t string together much in the way of offense and were defeated by the Cougars 4-2 in the semifinals of the Michelle Carew Classic on Friday at Peralta Park.
Since the projected rain forced the cancellation of the championship game scheduled for Saturday, the Cougars were named co-champions of the tournament along with St. Francis of Mountain View, which defeated Canyon 2-0 in Friday night’s other semifinal.
The Cougars took a 1-0 lead in the first on a double from Dakota Potter that drove in Tamryn Shorter, who had singled to lead off the inning.
The Vanguards, ranked No. 6 in Orange County, put the leadoff hitter on base in each of the first five innings, but only managed to score their two runs on a pair of errors and a wild pitch in the fourth inning, giving them a 2-1 lead.
After Jocelyn Alatorre, the hero of El Modena’s win over Esperanza on Thursday, doubled to lead off the fifth, Norco pitcher Coral Williams retired the next nine hitters to earn the complete-game victory.
Kaley Cook doubled for the Cougars with one out in the fifth and then scored on a throwing error to make the score 2-2.
Cook then hit a two-run single in the sixth to put the Cougars ahead for good.
“I give them credit because they put the ball in play a little more than other teams had this weekend,” El Modena coach Bobby Calderon said. “So, when you do that, you give yourself good opportunities.”
El Modena finished 3-1 in the tournament, which included a 4-3, come-from-behind victory over No. 9 Esperanza in which the Vanguards scored four runs in their final at-bat.
“Today, we didn’t get ourselves to that position and we couldn’t capitalize,” Calderon said. “We did take advantage of a couple of miscues by them again. We were able to take the lead. If you want to keep the lead, you have to play defense. You can’t have those miscues.”
In the other semifinal:
St. Francis 2, Canyon 0: Canyon (15-4) wasn’t able to solve St. Francis pitcher Kate Munnerlyn, who allowed three hits, with 10 strikeouts and one walk.
The undefeated Lancers (12-0) got all the offense they needed in the first inning on Rebecca Quinn’s sacrifice fly that scored Jaime Oakland from third.
Mia Saenz led off the first with an infield single for the Comanches and Victoria Oropeza singled to lead off the second.
But after Oropeza’s single, the Comanches didn’t get another hit until Kendall Nevin’s two-out double in the seventh.
Canyon went 3-1 in the tournament, which included a 2-1 victory over Pacifica, the No. 1 team in MaxPreps’ national rankings, on Thursday.
“You can’t take anything away from St. Francis,” Canyon coach Jess Carbajal said. “A quality program, a quality team. It’s good experience for us … I think we’ve grown tremendously. We’re going to be better ballplayers for it, too, and a better team. So, I think it’s great experience.”
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