JUNIOR COLLEGE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SOFTBALL REGIONAL : Cabral, Ventura Shut Down Antelope Valley in 4-1 Win

Antelope Valley College went west to play Ventura in the first round of the Southern California regional of the state softball tournament but the Marauder offense went south.

Antelope Valley mustered only three hits and went scoreless over the last five innings against Ventura’s Jen Cabral. The Pirates found their hitting stroke late in the game and scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to prevail, 4-1.

Diana Garcia drilled a clutch two-strike, two-out, two-run triple to highlight the decisive inning.

“They got key hits and we didn’t,” Antelope Valley Coach Gene Pagliaro said.

Ventura tied the score, 1-1, in the sixth when Cindy Perez scored on a wild pitch. Garcia then nearly ended the Pirates’ comeback before she virtually sealed the victory. There were two out when she launched a weak popup that fell just foul behind first base and between first baseman Carrie Ryan and second baseman Stacy Mulcahy. Granted a reprieve, Garcia lashed a ground-ball triple to left-center field to score Les Whitaker and Andrea Lopez and give Ventura a 3-1 lead.

“I knew I had a second chance,” said Garcia, who had two of six hits for the seventh-seeded Pirates. “I was looking for a good pitch because I didn’t want to hit a bad one again.”

Vicki Rivera, who also had two hits, drove in Garcia with a single for the final run. “We just kind of had to work our way up to a big inning,” said Ventura Coach Sue Johnson, whose team had begun to nick Antelope Valley’s Angie LePage in the fifth with two sharp singles.

Cabral (11-5) earned the victory and LePage (22-14) took the loss.

Ventura (25-13) will travel to second-seeded Cypress for a best-of-three series beginning Friday. Tenth-seeded Antelope Valley (23-15) suffered its fourth consecutive first-round loss in the playoffs.

In another first-round game:

Fullerton 4, Moorpark 2--Fullerton, the 13th-seeded team, scored two runs in the first inning and two in the fifth to upset fourth-seeded Moorpark (27-8) at Moorpark.

Erika Ostergaard scattered eight hits and went the distance for Fullerton (14-20).