Ocean View softball falls to Irvine in CIF Division 5 quarterfinals
Ocean View’s unexpected, terrific softball season came to a close in a weird, wild, wind-blown CIF Southern Section Division 5 quarterfinal affair with the top seed that, but for sharper defense and another couple of timely hits, might have fallen its way.
The Seahawks rallied from a quick four-run deficit in the bottom of the first inning Thursday afternoon, then put seven more runners into scoring position, but costly lapses on the field, on the basepaths and at the plate led to an 8-5 loss to visiting Irvine.
The key numbers: 10 Seahawks left on base, six of which were left in scoring position.
“You just have to execute,” first-year Ocean View head coach Keala Cordeiro said. “We had our chances to score more, but we didn’t execute in those moments. [And] just the little things. We had a couple of errors and couple of big [Irvine] hits that we definitely could have caught. You can’t go back now. It would have definitely changed [the game].”
Junior Sienna Erskine went three for three and reached base four times to lead Ocean View (18-6), and freshman Kaylah Arteaga and sophomores Kaya Collado and MacKenna King each added two hits. Right-hander Kaitlyn Knobbe settled down after a rough first inning, walked none and surrendered four earned runs.
Irvine (19-9), which is ranked second but received the top seed when No. 1 Trabuco Hills finished third in the four-team Sea View League, had its 2-3-4 hitters — sophomore Reese Villanueva, freshman Harper Vandermolen and junior Sienna Porter — go seven for 12 with six runs scored and two RBIs, both from Vandermolen.
The Vaqueros scored 28 runs in their first two playoff wins, then added some more to start Thursday’s action.
A lead-off triple from Katie Lu, successive singles by Vandermolen and Porter, a play at the plate and a two-run error made for a 4-0 lead for the Vaqueros. But Ocean View answered with four unearned runs, product of a two-out error and Vaqueros right-hander Hyli De Los Santos’ struggles with the strike zone.
Capelouto walked on five pitches, MacKenzie King reached on an errant throw by Porter at shortstop, and De Los Santos threw nine successive balls to walk Erskine and load the bases and Sydney Fullbright to bring home the first run.
Arteaga continued the rally and drove in two runners, and MacKenna King’s run-scoring single made it 4-4. With runners on second and third, De Los Santos struck out Knobbe, the No. 9 hitter, to end the threat.
A run-scoring double from De Los Santos pulled Irvine ahead in the third. The Vaqueros added a pair of runs in the fifth on Villanueva’s bunt single, Vandermolen’s swirling triple to right and an error, and capped the scoring in the seventh on Villanueva’s misplayed single.
The Seahawks added a run in the fifth when Erskine tripled and scored on a Fullbright grounder before De Los Santos stranded the outfielder at third. Collado was left at third twice, after a one-out triple in the fourth and a three-base error to lead off the sixth.
Ocean View threatened again in the seventh, putting runners on first and second with no one out. Erskine then got caught off the bag on a blooper to second, and after MacKenna King singled, left fielder Shelby Crowe corralled a wind-drifting pop-up to shallow left to end it.
“I couldn’t be more proud of these girls and the season they had, especially from last year,” said Cordeiro, who took over after the Seahawks followed their Division 5 title two years ago with a 6-16 campaign. “It was definitely something I wasn’t expecting.”
Neither was Knobbe, one of two seniors on the core 10-player roster.
“I was expecting a little better than last season, because we had a different coach, so I thought the girls would pull it together to try to impress the coach,” she said. “And we did. But I didn’t expect us to even make CIF. [The difference is] playing as a team. Last year, we did not play as a team. We’ve got better chemistry. Chemistry is huge.”
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
