Huntington Beach softball earns league split versus Marina
Huntington Beach and Marina were battling through a tight, emotional encounter Friday afternoon, a game of punch and counterpunch with the young, upstart Vikings twice surging ahead of their host and its superstar pitcher and hitter, then falling behind by a run in a Sunset League softball showdown carrying championship implications.
Up steps Zoe Prystajko, and boom.
Game over.
Prystajko’s three-run, fourth-inning bomb over the solar panels behind the second left-field fence — the fence 30 or so feet beyond the outfield fence — pushed Huntington Beach’s lead to five runs, and that was that. The Oilers , claiming their fourth win in as many days, cruised to a 9-4 triumph behind their Stanford-bound standout, who went four for four, struck out a dozen and surrendered just two earned runs.
It turns the title chase into a two-team race between Huntington Beach (13-4, 7-1), No. 7 in the CIF Southern Section’s Division 1 rankings, and softball archrival Los Alamitos (16-2, 6-0), which sits atop the poll. Whether that’s really so is up for debate, but the teams face off April 18 on the Oilers’ diamond and a week later at Los Alamitos, and a whole lot of things would have to slip into place if something else is going to determine the champion.
What will make the difference for Huntington Beach?
“Hitting,” said Huntington Beach coach Jeff Forsberg, whose group had 13 hits against Marina (17-6, 5-3). “Our pitching’s going to keep us in the game. I think it’s our hitting [that’ll decide things for us].”
How about the Griffins’ hitting? Forsberg smiles.
“I’ve got Zoe.”
Prystajko, the Daily Pilot Softball Player of the Year and an All-CIF selection last season, is the centerpiece of a talented and powerful Oilers lineup, a big junior left-hander who bats right and dominates in the circle and at the plate. She showed that off Wednesday, certainly with her bat, catching the left-field line with a two-out single in the bottom of the first inning; starting the three-run, go-ahead march in the third inning with a one-out single, the first of three successive hits (and four in five at-bats); bashing that mammoth homer in the fourth; then going to right field to set the table for the final run in the sixth.
The game turned when Prystajko found her rhythm in the circle, honed in on sophomore catcher Abcde Ornelas’ glove and struck out the side in the top of the fourth inning on 11 pitches. Ten minutes later, Prystajko hit her seventh home run of the season into the parking lot.
Macy Fuller worked a full-count walk off Marina freshman right-hander Mia Valbuena to start the bottom of the fourth, stole second base, then beat the throw home for a 5-3 Oilers lead as senior center fielder Sophia Knight took an extra base on a bloop single to left.
Valbuena then hit sophomore left fielder Morgan Drotter, and up stepped Prystajko. She took a strike, then launched the next pitch where nobody — not in a game, according to Forsberg — has gone before.
“She got all of that one. Zoe over the solar panels? That was a shot,” Forsberg said. “Zoe’s Zoe. She’s one of those kids, she’s very cerebral and she was on a mission. You just get out of her way.”
It might have traveled 300 feet. Nobody measured, and Prystajko didn’t stop to watch.
“I was just looking for a pitch to drive,” she said. “They weren’t giving much, but I was sitting on that pitch and waiting for it. ... [I’ve cleared the panels] in practice, but never in a game. It felt good off the bat, but I wasn’t looking [to see where it landed].”
Said Marina co-coach Dan Hay: “One of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen hit. Ever.”
It brought about the Vikings’ fourth straight on-field loss after a 17-1 start — they also took an 8-0 forfeit against Huntington Beach after declining to play a league opponent in last weekend’s Michelle Carew Classic third-place game — greatly diminishing their title possibilities.
“It could [knock us out],” Marina co-coach Shelly Luth said. “It would take somebody else to beat one of these guys.”
That someone could be Edison (12-9, 3-3), which played Huntington Beach tight in a 2-0 loss Tuesday and pulled out a 4-2 win over Marina Thursday, but dropped an 8-1 decision Friday against Los Alamitos.
Marina looked good in the first three innings against the Oilers.
The Vikings got runners to second and third in the first inning then pushed home an unearned run in the second on singles by Rylee Gonzalez and sophomore right fielder Liz Byer, a passed ball and a run-scoring groundout by junior second baseman Coral Piramo
They added two more runs in the third, one unearned, on successive singles by Rachel Ruiz, Makayla Mathis and Anaya Togia and a passed ball.
Huntington Beach answered each punch, scoring in the second on Marina transfer Liah Lummus’ double and taking a 4-3 lead in the third as Prystajko, sophomore first baseman Tea Gutierrez and Long singled with no one out and two came home, one after a throw went awry, on a one-out single by Saige Anderson.
Prystajko was in command before the third inning was done and retired 12 of the 14 batters she faced through the sixth inning, eight on strikeouts. Both teams added late runs — Huntington Beach on a sixth-inning Gutierrez single and Marina with a walk, two singles and a Togia sacrifice-fly in the seventh.
“I think as innings go on, you get more used to the umpire’s zone, the batters, the pitches they can or can’t hit,” said Prystajko, whose riseball was particularly effective. “It’s good going through [struggles] and knowing that it’s only going to get better [as the game proceeds].”
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