Simi Valley’s 4-0 Victory Is Not Altogether Fundamental

Simi Valley High softball Coach Susan Manlet can preach all the fundamentals she wants, but it was a rather unorthodox double play that propelled her Pioneers to a 4-0 victory over Hart in a pool-play game of the Thousand Oaks tournament Saturday at Thousand Oaks Community Park.

The Indians, trailing 4-0, had Anna Nordhagen on third base and Kellie Nordhagen on second with nobody out in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Chris Davis bounced to pitcher Lori Tande and Anna, running on contact, took off for home. Tande threw to catcher Cara DeStefano, who applied the tag.

Davis tried to advance to second but DeStefano saw her, faked a throw to the base and ran toward Davis with the ball. Kellie, who had advanced to third on the grounder, saw the plate uncovered and tried to score.

But DeStefano, who was near the pitching rubber, quickly changed direction, raced toward the plate and dove to tag out Kellie.

“I don’t know what I did,” DeStefano said. “It was kind of confusing.”

Tande (7-4) held the Indians in check in every other inning. She threw only 60 pitches, giving up two hits and walking none.

She didn’t strike out anyone but induced 11 fly-ball outs and had excellent defensive support.

“We’re getting things done,” Manlet said. “We’re playing fundamentally sound softball and we’re making unusual plays.”

But while Simi Valley (11-6) played good defense, Hart (15-4) did not.

The Indians made six errors and all of the Simi Valley runs were unearned.

Dawn Carifi reached second base with one out in the first inning on a throwing error by shortstop Chris Chao, who made four errors, and later scored on Corinne Long’s single up the middle.

The Pioneers struck again in the third inning on a run-scoring fielder’s choice by Lisa DeStefano and a single by Jill Clarkson. DeStefano advanced to third on Clarkson’s single and scored on a double steal when Chao’s throw to the plate sailed over catcher Danni Socha.

Earlier in the day, Rio Mesa defeated Simi Valley, 1-0, on Kiara Cochran’s run-scoring triple in the sixth inning.

Hart later defeated Rio Mesa, 3-0.

The Indians scored on a fielder’s choice and on a passed ball in the fourth inning and once more in the sixth on Davis’ single.