Marina Follows Orders to Win

Nag, nag, nag. That’s what Marina Coach Shelly Luth did this season, trying to drive home the point to her inexperienced softball players. Don’t swing at bad pitches.

That point was never bigger than Friday, when Marina--without a senior on the roster--scored twice in the seventh inning without benefit of a hit or an error to upset Irvine, 4-2.

The Southern Section Division I playoff victory moves Marina (17-9-1), second in the Sunset League, into the second round against league-champion Los Alamitos on Tuesday at Marina. Los Alamitos won two previous meetings.

Irvine, which ended the regular season fifth in Orange County and 10th in the section’s Division I rankings, finished 18-10.

“A lot of people counted us out at the beginning of the season,” said junior pitcher Heather Hagen (14-3, 0.28 earned-run average), who had never pitched before this season. “We’ve worked hard and it’s paying off.”

Though Luth harped on her players to have a keen eye, she also wanted them to be aggressive at the plate on Friday.

“That’s what we worked on,” she said. “Don’t swing at bad pitches. Swing at the first good strike. You don’t want to be 0-and-2 against this type of pitching.”

There was no chance of that in the seventh inning. None of eight Viking batters had two strikes as Irvine pitcher Colleen Young (13-6) lost the plate.

Like its two-run rally in the fifth inning, highlighted by Nikki Wilcox’s two-run single, the winning rally began at the bottom of the order. Devin Sailor, batting ninth, walked and Natalie Bonillas was hit. Both advanced on Wilcox’s sacrifice bunt, and Brooke Boyer’s walk loaded the bases.

Hagen lined to left field for the second out. Young, a junior, still could have gotten out of the inning unscathed, but walked Steffany Stenglein on four pitches and was replaced by sophomore Robyn Horrick. She started Alicia Velazquez off with a strike, then threw four consecutive balls to force in another run.

Hagen gave up five hits, walked two and struck out seven.

Irvine had a runner reach second base for the fourth time in the bottom of the seventh after Katy Anderson singled and advanced. The game ended with leadoff batter Edel Leyden on deck.

Leyden had tied the score in the bottom of the fifth with a two-out, two-strike, two-run homer to right field, her fourth.

“I consider us really, really lucky to get those two runs [in the seventh],” Luth said. “If [Leyden] gets up again, it could have been a storybook ending for Irvine.”

In other Division I games:

El Toro 3, Fountain Valley 2--Laura Joiner singled and scored in the bottom of the seventh inning for El Toro (24-7-1), which next plays Foothill. Joiner had three hits. Suzanne Guy pitched a four-hitter.

Foothill 12, Lakewood 0--Lauren Schwendimann pitched her second no-hitter, struck out 11 and walked two for Foothill (26-2-1). Rosie Gustavson had two hits and scored twice, and Lindsay Fossatti had two RBIs and scored twice.

Los Alamitos 2, Westminster 1--After Brooke Donberg’s single and Sara Kahler’s double in the bottom of the sixth, Angelina Herrera drove home both runs for Los Alamitos (21-5) with a two-out single. Westminster (18-8-1), limited to four hits by Mandy Rockwell, scored an unearned run in the seventh.

Mater Dei 7, Pico Rivera El Rancho 0--Tia Bollinger (15-3) and Marissa Young combined on a one-hitter, striking out 15 and walking one as Mater Dei (26-5) advanced to play West Covina, a 6-1 winner over Montebello. Shealee Dunavan had three hits, two RBIs and scored a run, and Kelsey Kollen had three hits and three runs.