Camarillo Finds Way to Beat Newbury Park

With 200 or so folks expecting to see a pitchers’ duel between two of the area’s finest, a funny thing happened: A good old-fashioned softball game broke out, replete with 15 hits, five errors, three passed balls, three wild pitches and a few outstanding defensive plays.

And this time, there was even a winner.

Camarillo High scored two runs in the top of the 11th inning on a single by Jessica Mendoza and the Scorpions held on to beat Newbury Park, 5-3, Tuesday in a pivotal Marmonte League game at Borchard Park.

The last time these teams met, the game ended in a scoreless tie when the sun went down after 13 innings. The pitchers were the same, but this time there was considerably more offense.

Although the teams are tied for first place at 9-1-1, the victory puts Camarillo in the driver’s seat based on head-to-head competition with three games remaining.

“I really wanted to beat this team bad,” said Camarillo pitcher Cindy Ball (8-0), who allowed five hits, struck out 13 and watched her scoreless innings streak end at 62. “We were pumped for this game. We were getting tired of these one-run games.”

Newbury Park (18-5-1), ranked No. 2 by The Times, bunched four of its five hits in the fifth and scored two earned runs off Ball to tie it, 3-3.

But Ball closed the door on the Panthers thereafter, retiring 18 of the next 20 batters in the sixth through 11th innings.

Top-ranked Camarillo (16-1-1), which has lost only to Simi Valley, got to Kristi Fox (13-3) early as well. The Scorpions had five of their 10 hits in the first four innings, scoring two unearned runs in the first and another in the fourth for a 3-1 lead. But Fox retired 14 in a row before surrendering a single to Sarah DeWoody with one out in the ninth.

In the 11th, Fox couldn’t contain the Scorpions. Jessica Ziese hit a one-out single up the middle. Later, with the bases loaded and two out, Mendoza ripped a line drive to right field and beat the throw to first by right fielder Dominique Colell.

Mendoza dove into first while Kortney Edge and DeWoody crossed the plate to give the Scorpions a 5-3 lead.

“All that was in my brain was that I was making it to first base safe,” Mendoza said.