PREP SOFTBALL ROUNDUP : Laguna Hills Flexes Muscle, Dominates Costa Mesa, 7-3

Laguna Hills Coach Cary Crouch said he’s still trying to determine the personality of his softball team, but whatever it is, it shares a common trait with past Laguna Hills teams--the Hawks are still the class of the Pacific Coast League.

Visiting Laguna Hills dominated Costa Mesa on Tuesday, 7-3, quashing the Mustangs’ hopes of an upset by scoring the first seven runs--one in the second and three each in the third and fifth innings.

After one trip through the league, the Hawks (13-8, 5-0 in league) appear poised to win their fifth consecutive league title and eighth overall; second-place Costa Mesa is 14-5, 4-1.

Laguna Hills’ closest league game was a 3-1 victory over Laguna Beach; an anticipated battle with University ended up being a 12-2 victory.

“It’s good for morale,” said Sumer McMahon, who scored twice and had one run batted in. “But it’s not really helping us get ready for the quality teams in the playoffs.”

All but one Laguna Hills starter had a hit as the Hawks dominated a team that had scored 130 runs in 18 games.

“I knew we were going to score runs, but not seven,” Costa Mesa Coach Rick Buonarigo said.

Laguna Hills, often a free-swinging team that hits the ball in the air, instead hit the ball strategically--”situational hitting,” Crouch called it--and had four of its nine hits without getting the ball out of the infield.

Freshman Elizabeth Brown drove in McMahon with the first run, and Laguna Hills’ Nos. 3, 4 and 5 hitters--Amber Journell, McMahon and Megan O’Donnell--also had one RBI. Brown was the only player with two hits.

Windy Scofield (5-4) pitched a four-hitter, but three errors in the sixth inning cost her the shutout.