PREP SOFTBALL ROUNDUP : Rosary Prevails in 15 Innings

After four hours, 15 innings and 377 pitches, the showdown between Rosary and Ocean View came down to two passed balls and one ill-timed wild pitch.

Ocean View pitcher Kathy Ponce misfired in the bottom of the 15th and Lorrie Waldie scored from third base to give Rosary a 3-2 Golden West League victory over the fifth-ranked Seahawks Wednesday at Fullerton’s Lions Field.

Waldie, who didn’t start because she missed a practice this week--she was visiting University of San Francisco--tagged home plate out of her head-first slide and bunched up the league standings in the process.

Ocean View (6-1-1, 4-1-1 in league) dropped into second place behind Westminster (5-1); Rosary (9-5, 4-2) is in third.

“If we had lost today, we wouldn’t win league,” Rosary Coach Tom Tice said. “I told (the players) that games like this should be played at the end of the season. . . . I wanted them to focus on this game, that it had repercussions beyond this week.”

The league schedule is set up so second- and third-round games are played back-to-back; Rosary plays the Seahawks for the third and final time Friday at Ocean View. Rosary next plays a doubleheader against Westminster.

The Rosary-Ocean View matchup featured the league’s best lineup and the league’s best pitcher.

Waldie drew a full-count, two-out walk against Ponce in the 15th, and reached third after two passed balls by catcher Tracy Wilkinson. The first pitch to Laura Fulton--whose fifth-inning double tied the score at 2-2--was a fastball that hit the backstop.

Wilkinson still had the ball in her hand at the backstop as the winning run scored, then watched as Rosary players piled on top of Waldie, who was face down amid the delirium.

The Royals beat Ponce (5-1) on a good day--she struck out 15, including Rosary’s leading hitters, Lesley Fulton (.429) and Julie Luna (.410), three times apiece; she allowed five hits, none through 4 2/3 innings.

Luna pitched the first 14 innings--and threw 195 pitches--before giving way to Lesley Fulton (4-2), who retired the Nos. 2, 3, 4 spots in the Ocean View lineup in the top of the 15th.

Ocean View stranded 11 runners--Wilkinson had the only RBI, one of seven Seahawk singles.

Rosary scored an unearned run in the fourth and another in the fifth; Ocean View scored two unearned runs in the fifth.

It was the third extra-inning game between the teams in their last four meetings and the second 15-inning game--all won by Ocean View.

“You have to hope for situations like that,” Tice said of the winning run. “In the past, it’s always been us that’s been the team that breaks in those situations.”