Burroughs softball moves on to CIF quarterfinals
Before graduating Thursday, senior members of the Burroughs High softball team will have some business to take care of on the field.
Before the “Pomp and at Circumstance” at Memorial Field, the Indians will take part in a CIF Southern Section Division III quarterfinal game.
Burroughs earned a trip to the elite eight by defeating Irvine, 4-2, on the road Tuesday in a second-round contest.
“For these girls, softball comes before graduation right now,” Burroughs Coach Doug Nicol said. “This is a big moment for our program because I don’t remember when the last time was that we were in the quarterfinals. We want to get to the graduation with our eye black on.”
The fourth-seeded Indians (23-4), who won the Pacific League championship, will travel to Norwalk for Thursday’s 3:15 p.m. quarterfinal. Norwalk (15-9) defeated Alemany, 2-1, in a second-round game Tuesday.
Despite stranding 11 runners against Irvine (15-14), the Pacific Coast League champion, Burroughs was able to generate its share of offense.
The Indians opened the scoring with three runs in the third inning to take a 3-0 lead.
However, Irvine tallied two runs in the sixth to make it a one-run ball game, 3-2.
Burroughs pushed across an insurance run in the seventh inning.
“We really didn’t play our best and we had some opportunities that we should have taken advantage of,” Nicol said. “We hit 15 groundouts, and that’s just not getting the job done. But Irvine had some good hitters and they were a good team.
“But in the playoffs, it’s just about surviving and moving on. We’re excited about being in the quarterfinals.”
Pitcher Presley Miraglia went seven innings to pick up the win, striking out eight and giving up seven hits. Kaitlin Okimoto and Brianna Johnson had three hits apiece, while Hannah Talavera collected two hits.
Burroughs had 10 hits off of Vaqueros pitcher Amanda Morgan.
“We were coming into their place, so we knew they were going to be a challenge for us,” said Nicol, whose team defeated Tesoro, 8-0, in a first-round playoff game Thursday. “It was a good softball game and hopefully we will be ready for the next one against Norwalk.”
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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com
Twitter: @jefftsports