Patriots punch championship ticket

By Adam Paul
Updated: May 25, 2023

2023 EAST COUNTY PREP SOFTBALL

By Adam Paul

CIF SAN DIEGO DIVISION III SEMI-FINALS

#6 Christian 7, #2 Mira Mesa 4

MIRA MESA – Winning against an opponent multiple times in a season is never an easy task, but that is what the Christian Patriots did on Thursday (May 25) as they defied all the odds, coming away with the victory over Mira Mesa to punch their ticket to the CIF Championship game.

Christian, in the latest chapter (the fifth meeting of the season), would trail 2-0 heading to the third inning, but would wake up offensively and take advantage of opportunities presented to score three runs.

Ashley Wood, who reached on an error by the Marauders, would come in to score on a wild pitch to make it 2-1. With two outs in the inning, Allyson Moody would tie the game with a base hit, scoring Tyler Krystek. Later, Moody would plate on a ball hit by Samantha Baca that was misplayed.

Mira Mesa, though, would retake the lead in the bottom of the fourth inning as they scored twice to lead 4-3.

Late in the game, down to their final at-bats, the Patriots knew they had to get something going.

Lead-off hitter Lucy Sherburne started things off when she was hit by a pitch. She would advance to third when Baca followed with a base hit to center field. Now, with Sherburne at third and Baca at first, everything was looking good. The luck would start tilting their way on the very next pitch that would get away for a wild pitch, allowing Sherburne to race home for the score to tie the game at 4-4.

After Baca advanced to third base on the same wild pitch, the next batter, Payton Grosset, would lay down the perfect bunt to score Baca and also reach safely. Having retaken the lead 5-4, the Patriots would add more runs in the inning, thanks to an error by Mira Mesa that scored Grosset and another wild pitch that scored Wood to give them a 7-4 lead.

Moody, who was in the circle, would finish things out, as she only allowed a couple more base runners the rest of the way before getting the final batter to pop out to end the game.

The senior went the distance and gets the win, allowing four runs on six hits, while striking out three.

Despite winning the first playoff meeting against Mira Mesa, the Patriots were not awarded a home game or made the home team, even though they sent the Marauders to the lower bracket with the win. In addition, the game that was played today was moved to Thursday, instead of being played yesterday like a bunch of the other games.

With all the odds against them that included an extra day’s rest for the top pitcher for Mira Mesa, the Christian Patriots are headed back to the CIF Championship game.

The last time Christian reached the championship game was back in 2017 when they again beat the odds and won the Division III championship by a score of 6-4 over a heavily favored High Tech High San Diego squad.

The 2017 Division III championship was their second of back-to-back as they won the year before in 2016 in Division IV against La Jolla 5-0.

Mira Mesa with the loss finishes their season 18-12 overall.

Christian moves to 16-9-1 overall and will now take on the top-seeded Imperial Tigers on Saturday (May 27) out at UCSD at Triton field for a scheduled 4 PM start time.