Fountain Valley softball falls to Upland in extra innings
Fountain Valley rallied twice from early deficits but couldn’t overcome another at the finish and exited the CIF Southern Section softball playoffs Tuesday afternoon with a heartbreaking extra-innings defeat.
Logan Bester’s one-out single in the top of the eighth inning got past Barons right fielder Taylor Reynolds for a two-base error, and Phebe Rodriguez’s sacrifice-fly brought her home with the winning run to send visiting Upland to a 7-6 triumph in a Division 3 wildcard clash and a first-round date Thursday with second-seeded Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.
Two calls at the plate cost Fountain Valley (12-13), which used a five-run fourth inning to take a 6-4 lead but managed just two hits — Ella Kim’s one-out single for the sixth run and Jenna Bixler’s bloop, injury-aided triple just beyond first base in the bottom of the seventh — in 4⅔ innings against reliever Maggie Cahueque.
“We seniors knew this could be our last one, but as a team, we knew we were going to win,” said Boise State-bound first baseman Makenzie Butt, who went one for four to end her prep career with a .486 batting average, 32 home runs (a dozen this year), and 107 runs and 132 runs batted in . “It didn’t turn out that way. It happens. We’re definitely bummed out that we didn’t get his win.”
Perseus Yanez keyed the Highlanders’ late rally, homering to left-center in the fifth to trim Fountain Valley’s lead to one run, then hitting a triple to right and scoring on a sacrifice-fly in the seventh to even the tally.
Fountain Valley coach Rick Aldrich thought she left third base early and should have been called out, and he also disagreed with the call when Andrea Maldonado was called out on Reynolds’ squeeze bunt in the first inning.
“Couple of calls go the other way and it’s a different game,” Aldrich said. “I thought [Maldonado] didn’t get tagged, but that was just my angle, and [the umpire] saw it different. In the seventh, she left a little bit early, we thought, but he didn’t think so. It’s one of those things. Those calls go the other way, we don’t get to the eighth inning.”
Both teams scored in the second — Marissa Sardinas’ sacrifice-fly brought home Kileigh Villalobos for the Barons — and Upland (16-7), a Baseline League tri-champion, grabbed a 4-1 lead in the third on Gianna Lomeli’s 12th home run of the season, a three-run blast to right-center.
Fountain Valley sent 11 batters to the plate in the fourth, getting its runs on five hits — starting with Sardinas’ ground-rule double — two walks and a hit batter, most of it against Highlanders left-hander Analise Reyes. The bases were packed when Cahueque struck out two to end the inning, and she retired the Barons in order in the fifth and sixth.
Bixler’s two-out bloop to right in the seventh fell in front of the diving Rodriguez, who then took a knee to the face from retreating second baseman Brianna Hinson. The ball rolled away and Bixler, with the would-be winning run, made it to third. Sardinas was intentionally walked, and Samantha Sameshima’s ground out to short ended the threat.
Also in the CIF Southern Section softball playoffs:
Ocean View 2, Oxnard Santa Clara 1: Sophomore left fielder Emily Mayorga and junior center fielder Kaya Collado scored for the host Seahawks on Tuesday in a wildcard round game of the Division 5 playoffs.
The Seahawks collected just three hits as a team, a double from Mayorga and singles from senior second baseman Sienna Erskine and senior shortstop Ashley Capelouto.
Senior pitcher Kayla Delgado threw a complete game, allowing one run on three hits. She struck out three without issuing a walk.
Staff writer Andrew Turner contributed to this report.
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