The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Riverside Poly rallies past Heritage, wins Ivy title
RIVERSIDE » Bri Garcia and Sophia Parada made sure their senior day game was a memorable one for Riverside Poly.
Garcia shook off a rough opening inning and shut down Heritage’s offense over the final six innings of Monday afternoon’s Ivy League softball game. Parada, the other senior on Poly’s roster, helped ignite the offense, driving in two runs as the Bears rallied for a 4-3 win to secure the league championship.
“I was just thinking about my teammates and how hard we’ve worked. We did not want to lose this game,” said Garcia, who tossed a four-hitter and struck out eight. “I knew they would support me, so I had to go out and do my job. I had to stay focused and use all my energy to make sure we stayed in the game.”
That wasn’t easy to do after Heritage (19-4, 5-2 in league) grabbed a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning. The Patriots scored the opening run of the game on an error. Adriana Abrantes doubled the lead with a run-scoring triple down the right field line, and Kaylee Fraund followed with an RBI single.
“That’s not the way you want to start, but we knew we had seven opportunities to get those runs back,” Poly coach Robert Sakaguchi said. “I told them not to press and to just chip away one run at a time.”
Poly (20-5, 6-1) got two runs back in the bottom of the third inning. Corina James got the rally started with a leadoff double, and she later scored on a oneout single by Parada.
Emiliee Castillo smacked a single to left field to being home Parada and cut the deficit to a single run.
The Bears had a chance to draw even or take the lead but stranded a combined five runners on the bases in the fourth and fifth innings.
“We had runners on in every inning but just couldn’t seem to get enough clutch hits,” Sakaguchi said.
That was not a problem for the Bears in the sixth inning. James again got things going with a leadoff double, and Maddy Cortez dropped down a bunt single that advanced James to third base. After a strikeout, Parada hit a sacrifice fly to left field to bring home James and level the score.
“We’ve been in situations like this before,” Parada said. “Our pitcher is working hard and we want to give her runs. It takes the whole team to do that. Everyone has to be in the right mindset to do it.”
Castillo came up clutch once again, as she singled home Cortez for the deciding run with two outs.
Perez allowed three hits and three unearned runs in the opening inning. She allowed only one more hit the rest of the way, a leadoff single in the fifth inning. Perez retired 15 of the final 16 batters she faced.
“Bri has been dynamite for us the past two years,” Sakaguchi said. “She never gets rattled, and you saw that after the first inning. It was senior day, it could have been the last home game, but that kind of pressure doesn’t get to her. She is nails in that circle.”