Rodas, Cajon walk off with championship
Senior shortstop’s RBI hit in eighth gives Cowgirls first title since ’06
IRVINE » Cajon softball coach Lee Haines is unabashedly old school.
So when Kim Rodas fouled off a squeeze bunt in the bottom of the eighth inning, Haines gave serious thought to giving her the same sign with the potential winning run standing on third base.
“But I thought about all the things that could go wrong,” Haines said. “The bunt could get popped up and it becomes a double play. Or maybe they pitch out and we get picked off.
“Kim has been hitting the ball well in the playoffs, so I just let her swing away.”
Rodas, a senior shortstop, turned on an inside pitch and lined a single to left field to bring Mercedes Alba home and lift the Cowgirls to a dramatic 2-1 win over El Toro in the CIF Southern Section Division 5 championship game at Barber Park on Saturday.
This marks the program’s second section title. Cajon won the Division 3 crown in 2006.
Alba nearly ended the game a few minutes earlier when she lined a double off the top of the fence in left field. Hope Morales sacrificed Alba over to third base.
Rodas said she was briefly upset with herself about not getting the bunt down on the first pitch. She turned the page and looked for a pitch to drive.
“I knew I had to get a hit or whatever it would take to get Mercedes in,” Rodas said. “When I hit the ball, tears started to roll down my face. It was an amazing feeling.”
Cajon (24-6) had to wriggle out of a couple of tight spots in the top of the eighth inning to set up the thrilling finish.
El Toro (20-10) had runners at second and third with one out, and Haines elected to intentionally walk Kylie Loertscher. A pitch to the ensuing batter got away from catcher Sonia Garcia, but she hustled to the ball and flipped it to Jada Villegas to tag out the runner trying to score.
It was a bang-bang play at the plate, but Cajon got the call.
“I think it’s the first time all year we got an out in that situation,” Haines said.
Llamas ended up walking a batter to reload the bases, and she went 3-0 to the next batter. Llamas kept her composure and induced a ground ball to third base to end the threat.
“I didn’t want to let my teammates down,” said Llamas, who tossed a five-hitter with eight strikeouts Saturday. “I had to fix a few things and just trust my defense.”
Cajon grabbed the lead in the second inning, and it was small ball that eventually got the run home. Rodas and KC Caldera opened the inning with back-to-back singles and both moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt by Jayna Lopez. Garcia stepped up to the plate and dropped down a perfect squeeze bunt to bring in Rodas and give the Cowgirls the lead.
Llamas allowed a leadoff single in the first inning but did not surrender another hit until the sixth inning. Olivia Fullerton led off El Toro’s sixth with a triple to the gap in right-center, and she scored the tying run on a single by Camryn Bradshaw.
Cajon won the championship in its first postseason appearance since the 2018 season.
“Everybody has gone through tough situations these past couple of years,” Rodas said. “To see everything come together my senior year and win a championship is amazing.”