Early jump fuels Heritage to crown
Patriots score five in first on way to victory in DI final
Three batters into Friday's North Coast Section Division I softball championship, visiting Heritage had all the runs it would need.
Mikaela Mortimer drew a leadoff walk. Tianna Bell reached base on an error. Then Skylar Stroh belted a long three-run homer. The Patriots added two more runs in that first inning, got another three-run homer in the sixth from Alexandra Cutonilli, and played superb defense behind lefty Kasey Aguinaga, who pitched her second straight shutout.
Final score: Heritage 8, Granada 0.
Now both teams will wait for today to find out who and where they will play in next week's NorCal tournament. Heritage (24-3-1), ranked fifth in the Bay Area News Group poll, goes because it's the NCS champion. No. 3 Granada (26-4) is assured of an invite because it entered the NCS playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
The Patriots excelled in every aspect of the game on Friday with the two threerun homers, Aguinaga's continued excellent pitching, and the superb defense, especially on the infield.
“This is a good group,”
coach Ron Rivers said. “They work hard. They do the fundamentals every day. No one's perfect, but I told them today we were perfect.”
Aguinaga wasn't quite as good as she was in the semifinals against Vintage, when she pitched a no-hitter. She gave up five singles, walked two batters and hit two more, and had eight strikeouts. But when all was said and done she improved to 12-0 with a 1.00 ERA.
“Tuesday I felt a lot more sharp,” the Boise State signee said. ”Today I was a little bit more nervous. It was a championship game. You had all those people in the crowd.”
The lefty also had never faced Granada, a team hitting
well over .300 and scoring about eight runs per game.
Aguinaga missed the first part of the season with a bicep strain. It's fully healed now.
Stroh, who plays second, is also headed to Boise State. But she will have to wait a year, being a junior. Shortstop Taci Haase, who is a senior, has also signed with the Broncos.
Heritage's lineup also includes third baseman Tianna Bell, who is headed to Cal. At least one recruiting site ranks her among the nation's top 100 players in the senior class. Cutonilli said she is hearing from the likes of St. Mary's and Sonoma State.
Bell and Cutonilli supply the bulk of the power for the Patriots. Bell has nine home runs. Cutonilli's homer against Granada was her sixth of the season.
“When I'm trying to make contact, when I'm not thinking about home runs, that's when I hit them,” she said.
But make no mistake, Cutonilli thinks of herself as a home run hitter. Asked when she got that idea, she said, “When I was 10 years old. I had just quit competitive gymnastics, and I was really strong from that. My coach took me because I had power. I had no fundamentals, but you saw the strength I had.”
Her homer went out just to the right of dead center.
Finally, there was the defense. Nice glovework. Accurate throws. At least two gems, one by Stroh at second in the first, another by Haase from short in the fourth.
All part of a perfect Friday afternoon for Heritage.
Benicia celebrates Division II title
Benicia scored three runs in the first inning, and that was plenty for pitcher Braxton Brown as the secondseeded Panthers defeated fifth-seeded Marin Catholic 6-1 on Friday in the North Coast Section Division II softball final.
Brown homered, Lorenzza Marcacci knocked in two runs and Kyra Mason doubled twice to lead Benicia's attack.
Marin Catholic scored in the fourth to cut the margin to 3-1.
Benicia answered with a run in the bottom half of the frame and single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to put the score out of reach as it improved to 22-6.
The section title was Benicia's fifth. The Panthers won an NCS crown in 2000 and Sac-Joaquin Section championships in 2014, 2017 and 2018 before moving back to the NCS.
The victory secures Benicia's spot in next week's inaugural California Interscholastic Federation NorCal regionals.
Marin Catholic, which upset top seed Livermore in the semifinals, fell to 22-4.