Softball: El Toro doesn’t get it done against Agoura
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Agoura was in The Times’ top 25 ranking for a few weeks early in the season, but the Chargers’ year didn’t exactly blossom from there. Then again, maybe the Southern Section-Toyota Division I playoffs is where they can make their case. They certainly made an impact in the first round as they traveled all the way to Lake Forest and beat another Chargers squad, El Toro, 4-2, on Friday.
It was still a blur to El Toro Coach Jim Daugherty, but he seemed to recall a pop-up falling between his second baseman and right fielder being kind of crucial.
Oh, there was also the first inning, when El Toro loaded the bases but did not score. Turned out that losing pitcher Carly Land’s hard groundball to second base was gobbled up to end the threat.
‘That was key for us,’ said Daugherty, whose team was No. 5 in The Times’ ranking at the end of the regular season. ‘I thought, OK, we got a couple of hits. I think she walked [cleanup hitter] Niki Williams. But after that we didn’t make enough things happen.’
El Toro (22-8-1) got solo home runs from Allison Dorr and Christina Capobianco. Shortstop and leading hitter Kendal Hennings still was not fully recovered from a muscle injury in her rib that may have been brought on by violent vomiting a couple weeks ago when she was sick. She missed the game last week against Trabuco Hills that El Toro lost, 1-0.
‘We hit the ball, they made a couple of outfield plays on us, we made a couple of key errors and didn’t hit the ball enough,’ Daugherty said. ‘Their pitcher [Kimberly Green] was very good. She really hit her spots.’
El Toro had been ranked sixth in the final CIF-SS Division I rankings. Agoura, the fourth-place team from the Marmonte League, improves to 15-11.
-- Martin Henderson