The San Marcos softball team took down Hemet 11-1 in six innings in a CIF-SS Division-4 second round playoff game on Tuesday.
The Royals (21-7) scored four runs in the first and sixth innings en route to a dominant mercy rule victory.
Hailee Rios hurled two shutout innings and Aliyah Huerta-Leipner pitched four innings of one-run ball to close out the game and earn the save.
In the first inning San Marcos sent 8 hitters to the plate, with the first four scoring. A Hailey Fryklund single scored Huerta-Leipner and Savannah Tait and a Claire Early double scored Rios. Fryklund then scored on a ground ball to give the Royals an early 4-0 lead.
Huerta-Leipner entered the game in relief in the third inning and surrendered a leadoff double, which scored one out later. But the Huerta-Leipner and the Royals didn’t allow another run the rest of the way.
Fryklund hit a two-run home run that scored Rios in the fourth to break the game open and give the Royals a 6-1 lead. In the fifth, Rios singled home Paige Powell from second to make the score 7-1.
The Royals really put the game away in the top of the sixth, when Huerta-Leipner hit a two-out grand-slam that scored Alex Pitchford, Michelle Henderson, and Megan Cunnison.
Huerta-Leipner allowed a leadoff double to begin the bottom of the sixth, but a fly out and two strikeouts sealed the mercy rule victory for the Royals.
“We anticipated the pitching to be slower than we are used to, which has caused us problems in the past, but every member of the team made some good adjustments and hit the ball well,” explained San Marcos head coach Jeff Swann.
The Royals host Beckman on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
— Noozhawk sports reporter Christian Eckert can be reached at ceckert@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports and @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.