Just how tough was the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s De Anza Division in softball this year? Well, tough enough that four of its members accounted for a third of the field selected to play in the Central Coast Sections Division I championship tournament, which began in earnest this week.
Regular season champ Wilcox led a contingent of four De Anza Division squads–Homestead included–into the CCS playoffs, along with Monta Vista and Mountain View from the SCVAL’s El Camino Division, earlier this week.
Winners of games during the week will play Saturday at sites and times not yet determined (visit cifccs.org for the latest playoff information).
Meanwhile, in the CCS Division I baseball play-offs, Cupertino (19-8), the SCVAL’s El Camino Division and Monta Vista (16-11) were slated to open tourney play on Wednesday. Winners advance to games on Saturday.
Homestead’s young and talented softball team clinched its berth in the section play-offs by closing out its regular season last week with impressive wins over Gunn and Saratoga.
The Mustangs secured their spot in the play-offs with an 8-1 thumping of Gunn, pounding Titan pitching for 14 hits.
Freshman Carrine Peterson led the way at the plate, driving in four runs with a trio of hits. Senior Noa Yakir also chipped in with three hits, knocking in one run. Brittany Prock and Nikka Piazza each rapped two hits, and Rachelle Cepeda, Nicky Kirk, Julie Davis and Nancy Liu all had one.
Prock, a sophomore, scattered five hits, walked no one and struck out six in going the distance for her 15th win of the season.
Two days later, Prock capped Homestead’s regular season with a 1-0 shutout of Saratoga, raising her record to 16-7 and lowering her earned run average to 1.92 as she held the Falcons to just three hits.
Kirk delivered the game’s only run with a fourth-inning single that plated Chelsey Liu. Cepeda and Prock had the Mustangs’ only other hits on the day.
Monta Vista clinched a share of the El Camino Division championship by disposing of Cupertino 5-1 in its regular season finale.
The Matadors and Mountain View Eagles finished their respective regular seasons with identical 11-1 records in SCVAL play.
Marissa Lee tripled, singled, drove in a run and scored another to spark the Matadors at the plate against Cupertino, and Tamanna Ahluwalia hurled six strong innings to earn her seventh win of the season.
Janaye Sakkas chipped in with an RBI single, and Danielle Koontz singled and scored twice for the winners. Ann Marie Manley and Mika Maenaga each scored a run.
Kira Marquez singled in Cupertino’s only run of the game, while Jordan Amick, Agnes Jang and Alex Guel also had singles.
The Pioneers ended the season with a 5-7 record in league play, good for fourth place in the El Camino Division, and were 11-15-1 overall.
