LA MESALA MESA — A pitcher and catcher who are relatively familiar with each other are two of the big reasons Otay Ranch High is the CIF Division II softball champion for the 2021 season.
Maya Loper pitched a one-hit shutout with her twin sister Sarah on the receiving end behind the plate as the No. 2-seeded Mustangs prevailed with a 4-0 shutout of top-seeded Helix in Saturday’s finals on the Highlanders’ field. Maya Loper struck out 14 batters along the way and allowed no hits after a leadoff double by Helix’s Kori Jonilonis in the first inning.
“We’ve been playing together since we were old enough to walk,” Sarah Loper said. “Playing with her makes all the hard work worth it.”
Maya Loper also clouted a solo home run in the sixth inning to expand a 2-0 Otay Ranch lead, but it was her pitching that doomed the Highlanders (25-6).
“She’s a real good pitcher and we knew we would be facing her, but we just didn’t make the adjustments during the game,” said Helix coach Darren Emery. “We got a big win this morning and it was a long day for us, but their pitcher just took over.”
Helix needed to defeat Del Norte 2-1, earlier in the day in an if-necessary game that was postponed from the previous day.
“Usually it’s my rise that is my best pitch, but today it was my curve,” said Maya Loper, a junior right-hander who retired 12 straight batters from the second through fifth innings. “And having Sarah back there, she knows what I’m feeling and what pitch I should be throwing.”
Sarah Loper put Otay Ranch (18-7) on the scoreboard in the top of the first inning with a two-out RBI single that scored Jaeden Inguito after she was hit by a pitch and stole second base.
A third-inning RBI double by Isabel Vinluan made it a 2-0 game before Maya Loper homered in the sixth. Vinluan added an RBI single in the seventh for the final margin.
The Mustangs finished with 11 hits, including a pair of singles by Isabel Cintron.
Division III
El Camino 9, Mira Mesa 8: Coming in to pitch relief in the fifth inning of a one-run championship game, El Camino’s Dakota Edwards figured her main job was to hold down the Mira Mesa offense.
As it turned out, it was Edwards who provided one of the biggest offensive fireworks of the contest when her two-out, three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning carried the Wildcats to a triumph over Mira Mesa.
“It felt great,” Edwards said of the blast off a 1-2 delivery from Marauders pitcher Callie Christian which broke a 6-6 tie. “All my hits before that were little bloopers, but I felt more relaxed on the last one.”
The Wildcats (19-13) had to hold on in the bottom of the seventh after Mira Mesa closed the gap to 9-8 on a two-run single by Christian, but Edwards retired Malia Iwai on a grounder to third baseman Sam Quintero for the final out after Iwai had two hits earlier in the game..
“Our pitchers felt the nerves, but they pushed through the pressure,” said junior catcher Jade Ignacio, who tripled and scored in the first inning before launching a two-out grand slam in the second inning for a 5-1 El Camino lead. Ignacio, the Avocado League Player of the Year, also singled to lead off the seventh-inning rally.
“We’ve got a lot of good players,” said El Camino coach Dan Worley, whose team is graduating just two seniors. “And the girls who needed to pick their game up did just that and played key roles throughout.”
El Camino, seeded No. 6, needed to survive four elimination games to reach the final.
“We played five games in five days” said Worley.
The section crown is the third for El Camino, which won the Division I title in 2010 and Division II in 1994.
Mira Mesa, the No. 4 seed, fell despite collecting 16 hits. First baseman A’mae Moots was 4-for-4 with a triple, double and two singles, and designated player Destiny Garcia hit three singles.
Division IV
Holtville 13, Bayfront Charter 7: Powered by the Strahm sisters, No. 2 seed Holtville rolled to a victory over top-seeded Bayfront Charter for its second section championship in program history, 23 years after the Vikings won their first D-IV crown.
Sophomore pitcher Kalli Strahm and freshman second baseman Brooke Strahm combined for six hits and six runs as each sibling reached base four times. Kalli Strahm was the winning pitcher in the circle with five strong innings of allowing just one run on one hit before the Sharks rallied for six runs in the final two innings.
“When we score first, it takes the pressure off of me,” Kalli Strahm, a left-hander, said of her pitching. “Up until the fifth inning, it was going well. Then it got away from me a little bit, but my team backed me up.”
Holtville (19-4) scored four first-inning runs after two were out. Brooke Strahm provided an RBI double before scoing on an RBI single by her sister to help fuel the rally. The Vikings added four more runs in the fifth and were one out away from a 10-run mercy-rule victory in the sixth before Bayfront rallied for four runs.
The Vikings finished with 17 hits, with Brooke Strahm, Kalli Strahm, Sofie Irungaray and Lexis Smith all collecting three hits apiece.
Holtville coach Melissa Snyder, who was a two-time finalist as a player in 2002 and 2004 when she pitched for El Centro Southwest, has righted a program that finished 11-17 two years ago.
“We’re doing our best to change the culture,” said Snyder. “This team has bought into the program, and 11 of our 14 players are coming back as we have only three seniors.”
After being held to one first-inning single through five innings, Bayfront (26-4) finished with seven hits, including two apiece by Illiana Romero and Lizette Vargas.
Hoff is a freelance writer.
