A stellar performance in the circle from freshman Emily Morici and timely third-inning hitting proved to be enough for Dos Pueblos softball to knock off visiting Crescenta Valley by a score of 5-0 in the first round of the CIF-SS Div. 3 playoffs on Friday at Okinaka Field.
With the win, the Co-Channel League Champion Chargers improved to 19-6 overall and will travel to La Salle for the second round of the playoffs, scheduled for Monday. La Salle defeated Grand Terrace 21-5 in its first-round match.
“We really tried to ramp up the intensity in practice, tried to do some more competitive games, and I think the fact that we competed pretty well in practice this week showed up today,” Dos Pueblos head coach Mike Gerken said.
Morici, who has been a standout for Dos Pueblos all year long, continued the trend on Friday with a complete-game shutout where she struck out 11 and surrendered just one walk. Gerken said Morici has just been “super consistent” all season.
“Her strikeout-to-walk ratio is something I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said. “Emily just really had a great performance, and it’s just another great performance in a season filled with great performances.”
Morici told Noozhawk after the game that she just tried to “not overthink” her performance today, despite being a freshman pitcher.
“I just zone out and try to do my job,” she said. “We’ve been working all week, so I know that my team’s got me, and I’ve been working on keeping pitches precise, and that’s really helped.
“I’m really proud of how we performed. I know a lot of work has gone into it, and that’s helped us a lot. I believe we could go all the way, as long as we’re all working together.”
The Dos Pueblos offense put together a solid performance throughout as well, registering a total of 10 hits, the majority of which came in their third inning.
After leaving runners in scoring position on base in the first two innings, Dos Pueblos made sure to get all five who reached scoring position home in the third frame.
The inning started with singles from junior Zella Cassidy, Morici and senior Kacey Hurley to load the bases. Sophomore Julianna Brunner then brought the first run in when she hit a ball to third base and Cassidy beat the throw to home to give the Chargers a 1-0 lead.
Junior Brooklyn Hedricks then came up big, delivering a well-hit ball to center field that was misplayed by the Falcons defender. This allowed Hedricks to leg out a double and drive in two runs, giving the home team a 3-0 lead.
“That was a huge play, because we had just scored earlier on a force at home. We talked about trying to put pressure on their defense, and Hedricks certainly put a lot of pressure on them with the bases loaded, hitting a hard shot like that,” Gerken said.
“The fact she hit the ball so hard in a clutch situation really contributed to us piling on the runs there.”
The final two runners came home courtesy of a passed ball that then turned into an error, allowing the Chargers to take a commanding 5-0 lead, which would eventually be the final score.
“Our first time up at bat, we were pretty comfortable, our batters had a lot of confidence when they’d come back to the dugout, and we knew as a matter of time before we would break through. That third inning was the time that we did,” Gerken said.
Gerken said usually the team’s next game would be played on Saturday, but La Salle was having field issues, so the game will be played on Monday. He said the team will focus on resting before heading out for the contest.
“From what we hear, they don’t make a lot of mistakes, so hopefully we can put some pressure on them as we did today and get us to the next round,” Gerken said.