Softball: Kennedy bats get to Marina’s Baldwin
HUNTINGTON BEACH – Coastal softball teams in the Sunset League likely feel that they have been dealt a bad hand.
Not very often is a team going to have the opportunity to say that it has the nation’s top-ranked team in its league, but that is where MaxPreps is placing Los Alamitos High to begin the year.
The stacked Griffins boast a roster that has 19 players committed to play collegiately, a challenge that no team should envy.
If the nonleague season was supposed to provide a safe haven for Marina, its softball team found no such comfort in its home opener against Kennedy.
Los Alamitos transfer Daisy Munoz drove in three runs and scored another to help the Fighting Irish to a 7-3 victory on Wednesday afternoon against host Marina.
The junior third baseman had a run-scoring single in the first. She added a two-run double to the gap in right-center in the third.
Munoz, who batted cleanup, said that familiarity with Vikings starter Amber Baldwin from being in the league helped her come through with runners on base. She was looking for the elevated fastball when she drilled a 3-2 pitch for the double.
“I’ve actually played them at my old school,” Munoz said. “I remember batting against her, and I remember her pitch sequence.
“I kind of had an idea, and I kept looking up (in the strike zone).”
Marina’s battery of Baldwin (1-1) and catcher Ryan King is committed to Middle Tennessee State.
In a league as strong as the Sunset League, teams will need a stopper. Tera Blanco, who was an All-Big Ten and NFCA All-American first team performer for the Michigan Wolverines as a sophomore last year, used to fill that role for Marina.
Baldwin, the current go-to starter for the Vikings (1-2), is facing tough times. Her team needs her, but she also has to be patient with herself. The senior ace has been dealing with a lower-back injury for several months, and it tightens up on her when she pitches.
“She’s been dealing with (the back) for probably the last four months,” Vikings coach Mandee Farish said. “It just tightens up. That’s what we’ve been dealing with. Just ice, heat, and trying to get her stretching.”
Extended innings and periods of wildness marred Baldwin’s outing. At one point in the third, she threw nine consecutive balls.
The walks to Miranda Gallardo and Kaylee Williamson set the table for Munoz to break a 2-2 tie. Kennedy (1-0) emerged from the top of the third with a 5-2 lead.
“If that continues, we’re just going to have to find different ways because that obviously isn’t going to work,” Farish said of the location issues. “We need to work with her because she is a big part of this lineup and battery. We need to have her.”
Julia Carreon and Emily Rush pitched in relief. Carreon allowed two runs in the fourth before delivering a perfect fifth inning.
Rush, a freshman, pounded the strike zone in two scoreless frames.
On a positive note for the Vikings, the offense produced nine hits. More often than not, Fighting Irish starter Erica Guerrero (1-0) was able to work out of trouble, stranding runners in the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh.
Lead-off hitter Nicole Logrecco and center-fielder Paige Shafer had two-hit games for Marina.
Sage Malvin homered in the sixth. Her solo shot, which cut Kennedy’s lead to 7-3, went off the scoreboard in left field.
“It felt good,” Malvin said of her connection. “I’ve been struggling with the inside pitch, so that felt really good that I hit a home run off of an inside pitch.”
Ashley Myers, Ashley Pilatos, Carlie Hoetker, and Rush also had hits for the Vikings.
Marina plays Fountain Valley at 9 a.m. on Saturday in the consolation bracket of the Cypress Tournament. The game will be at Cypress High.
Nonleague
Kennedy 7, Marina 3
SCORE BY INNINGS
Kennedy 203 200 0 – 7 8 0
Marina 020 001 0 – 3 9 1
Guerrero and Garza; Baldwin, Carreon (4), Rush (6) and King, Henderson (6). W – Guerrero, 1-0. L – Baldwin, 1-1. 2B – Munoz (Ken), Ferguson (Ken), Myers (Mar). HR – Malvin (Mar).
Twitter: @ProfessorTurner
