Two Morgan Hill Pride teams battle it out in semifinals before
Green falls to San Carlos in softball tournament championship
game
The Morgan Hill Pride Green Team took home the second place trophy in the prestigious Morgan Hill Slugfest 12 and under softball tournament over the weekend.
The Morgan Hill Pride Gold Team also had a successful tournament, losing in the semifinals to the Green, but still taking home third place.
The semifinal matchup between the Green and Gold was the most anticipated game of the tournament. In the game to decide who advances to the championship game, the Green prevailed 4-2.
Both pitchers, Brianna Anglikowski for the Green and Katie Mains for the Gold, produced solid outings.
The Gold’s Heather Johnson broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the second inning with a towering home run to deep center field. Shannen Green followed with a slap single and Alexis Bejarano singled to right but Anglikowski got a ground ball out to end the inning.
In the top of the third, the Green got on the board. Alyssa Vukcevich dropped down a bunt single and advanced to third base on an overthrow. On the next pitch, Vukcevich stole home to tie the game.
The Green took its first lead of the game in the top of the fourth. Yessi Ceja singled to center field. Annika Camacho later grounded out to the pitcher, but Ceja utilized some aggressive baserunning to score all the way from first.
The Green pushed its lead to 3-1 in the fifth when Vukcevich had a line drive single to center, stole second and third and scored on a throw to first base.
The Gold narrowed the gap to 3-2 when Bejarano doubled to left center and Marissa Faust reached on an error. Faust aggressively headed toward second base and forced a throw, which allowed Bejarano to score from third.
The Green got a much needed insurance run in the top of the sixth. Ali Stoner singled to left and her pitch runner Megan Perez scored when Katie Machado blasted a double over the center fielder’s head.
The Gold put a runner on third with nobody out in the bottom of the sixth. But Anglikowski struck out the next two batters and got the final batter to ground out to secure the 4-2 victory that advanced the Green to the championship game.
In the championship game, the Pride Green went up against a tough pitcher and a tough team and fell to the San Carlos Force Grey 11-1.
The Pride struggled offensively, and scored their only run in the fourth inning when Vukcevich walked, stole second and third and scored when Camacho delivered the Pride’s only hit of the game.
In earlier tournament action, the Pride Green started off the tournament with a 7-7 tie to the Palo Alto Heat. After a three run first inning by the Pride, the Heat responded with four runs in the bottom half of the first.
The Pride tied in the top of the second and took a 7-5 lead in the third. The Heat managed to plate two runs in the bottom of the fourth to tie the game and the game ended knotted up at 7-7.
In the Green’s second game of the tournament, they were again matched up with the San Carlos Force Grey and lost 13-0.
They rebounded in their next outing and scored a 7-4 win over the Mountain View Nova.
The Nova took a 4-1 lead after one inning, but in the second the Pride came storming back.
Taylor Pencer hit a towering double to left field and Shawnee Davis, Megan Perez, Didi Lopez and Ceja all walked before Camacho rocketed a triple to center to make it 6-4 Pride.
Anglikowski struck out the side in the third and the Pride cruised to the win.
The Pride’s offense really got rolling in their next two games. They crushed the San Carlos Force Black 12-4 and secured a spot in Sunday’s action by beating the Pajaro Valley Tremblers 12-7 in their final game on Saturday.
In the win over the Tremblers, the Pride batted around in the second inning, turning a 1-1 tie into and 8-1 lead to put them in control of the game.
That win set up the all-Morgan Hill showdown in the semifinals and secured them of some hardware.
The next test for Pride comes this weekend in tournament in Salinas before they head off to play at the Northern California Championship at Twin Creeks at the end of the month.
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