Look out world, Gilroy could be seeing you soon. After taking
the sectional tournament with relative ease, the Gilroy girls
Softball Majors All-Star team capped off the Northern California
State Championship game in thrilling fashion Wednesday, coming back
to beat Martinez 8-7.
Gilroy – Look out world, Gilroy could be seeing you soon.
After taking the sectional tournament with relative ease, the Gilroy girls Softball Majors All-Star team capped off the Northern California State Championship game in thrilling fashion Wednesday, coming back to beat Martinez 8-7. The team will now head to Vancouver, Wash. to compete in the 10-team Western Regionals, with the winner advancing to the Little League Softball World Series in Portland.
After taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Ashley Williams’ single brought home Sarina Sandoval, Gilroy saw its lead evaporate after some costly errors.
Before the team could blink twice, the game looked all but over in the fifth frame. Down 7-3, manager Dusty Lester was already trying to mentally prepare the girls for a game to immediately follow the first. (The tournament was double-elimination and Gilroy had yet to lose.)
“I was trying to keep the girls calm and be ready for the second game,” Lester said.
Losing, however, was something these girls wanted no part of.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, singles by Kaylana Mah and Ashlee Williams were followed by a double by Shawnte Garcia. Both runners scored, but the overall run was just getting started.
Amber Gamboa and Alex Zamaripa followed with singles of their own to help tie the game at seven apiece.
Marizza Lucio put the exclamation point on the rally by hitting an RBI single to give Gilroy an 8-7 advantage, which it never relinquished.
Lucio almost didn’t get that opportunity when Lester and his coaching staff considered using a pinch hitter. Wisely, they left her in the game.
“I just had a hunch,” Lester said.
Lucio was calm, but fully understood the stakes of her at-bat.
“I just needed to get a hit,” she said.
Mah, who came on in relief of Celeste Mendoza Jimenez, pitched four scoreless innings and ended the game in the top of the sixth by getting three of four batters to ground out, the last being a hit to Garcia, who was playing first base.
Asked what her reaction was when the last out came her way, Garcia said, “My heart stopped.”
But going into the Western Regionals, there is little reason to think this Gilroy squad will be halted. All 12 players on the All-Star team have played together in club tournaments for the Chaos traveling club and it seems to have melded this group into a well-oiled machine.
“I would say Chaos brought us closer,” Zamaripa said. “And now for All-Stars we know how to play together. We know what we’re all going to do.”
After last year’s Majors All-Stars came in fifth at the World Series, the question has to be asked, ‘Is this team better?’
“It’s pretty even,” said Lester, an assistant coach on last year’s team. “We may not have as strong of pitching overall, but we have more speed and better hitting throughout the lineup.”
The team will play its first game of Western Regionals Sunday against Nevada, with the second game on Wednesday against Utah. After those games it will be win or go home.
Casey Lester didn’t shy away from assessing her team’s chances of advancing to the World Series.
“Yeah, I think we can,” Lester said. “But we have to take it one game at a time at Westerns.”
With hot bats, live arms and coach-speak coming from the manager on down to the players, it’s easy to see this is one savvy bunch of ballplayers.
