Acevedo’s late HR lifts Hillcrest to title
Freshman shortstop hits opposite-field shot in 7th to break tie with Elsinore
IRVINE » Melody Acevedo said she was trying to become a baserunner. Being a base jogger was even better.
With two outs and the bases empty in the top of the seventh inning of a tie game, Acevedo hammered the first pitch for an opposite-field home run, providing the difference in Hillcrest’s first CIF softball championship. The blast lifted the Trojans to a 5-4 victory over Elsinore in the Division 6 final on Saturday.
“Honestly, I was just trying to get on base,” said Acevedo, a freshman shortstop. “I knew the girls behind me would have my back.”
It was another big day at the plate for Acevedo, who has been on a tear in the postseason. She had three hits Saturday and finished the section playoffs 10 for 14 with seven RBIs.
“Mel has gotten stronger (since the start of the season),” coach Tony Carvajal said. “She’s grown up. Taller. More muscle. At the beginning, she would get a little nervous. Now, she’s like ‘I’ve got this.’ ”
Carvajal also gave an assist to preceding batter Emma Martinez, who worked Elsinore pitcher Nakiya Logan for 13 pitches. Martinez, the leadoff batter, saw 30 pitches in four at-bats.
“Emma deserves props, too,” Carvajal said. “I think she tired her (Logan) out a little.”
Logan showed plenty of grit, nevertheless. Just 12 pitches into the game, she was down by three runs after a single, an error and a three-run home run by Isabel Villareal that followed almost the same path to right-center that Acevedo’s did. It was the third straight game in which Villareal had homered.
Hillcrest starter Mattison Beliveau had allowed just two runs in four playoff games, so a 3-0 deficit was a tall hill. Elsinore, however, battled back to tie, fell behind again and came back to tie the score a second time.
The Tigers (21-8) had seven hits, including five extra-base hits, against Beliveau. Alyssa Jimenez tripled and scored on a wild pitch to the score 4-4 in the fifth. Mikaela Matamoros, who had tripled in the first, followed with a one-out double.
Beliveau, however, found her extra gear. She got out of the inning on the way to retiring the final eight batters. She finished with 10 strikeouts, giving her 71 in the playoffs.
The championship had personal meaning for Beliveau, who watched her father, the Norte Vista boys soccer coach, lose a section final and regional final last year.
“To me, I feel like I won the plaque for him,” Beliveau said. “It feels good to just be able to breathe again that we won one.”
Carvajal had gotten used to seeing Beliveau cruise through the playoffs, but saw the benefit in a game that was tougher for her.
“This is the kind of game that makes you better,” he said, “not the 12- or 14-strikeout games.
“Her rise wasn’t working as well as usual. But we kept telling her, ‘We’re with you. Just be the buldog you are.’ ”
Bulldog was an apt description for the way Logan and the Tigers kept fighting uphill, especially after the first-inning shock.
“She’s pretty headstrong,” Elsinore coach Jasmine Angello said of Logan. “She can pull herself out of a hole. It kind of riled her up. Her pitches started coming harder and she was hitting her spots better.”
For a program that hadn’t even qualified for the playoffs in recent years, this year’s ride was a major step forward.
“We’re the small school in the district,” she said. “Maybe this will capture people’s attention, to see the cameraderie and the fight this team had with its small roster.”
Cajon players celebrate after defeating El Toro in the CIF Southern Section Division 5 championship game on Saturday at Bill Barber Park in Irvine.