The Piedmont High School softball team advanced to the second round of the North Coast Section Division 6 playoffs with an 18-11 win over visiting California School for the Deaf on May 19.
It was a longer than expected afternoon after the sixth-seeded Highlanders built a 17-0 lead after four, but then allowed eight runs in the fifth to extend the game. If a team leads by 10 runs after five innings, the game ended due to the mercy rule.
Freshman Mackenna Small led the offense with two hits and four RBI. Eagles pitching allowed 21 walks which helped Piedmont build the big lead.
“I felt good,” Small said. “We had a little bit of a rough middle to end. It gets kind of challenging when everyone’s walking so you’re in the mentality of I don’t really need to swing cause I’ll just walk and then all of a sudden, she’ll throw a strike and you’re not paying attention.”
Isle Gonzalez started for CSD and walked the first six batters of the game. After getting Hanley Carling to ground out, she then hit Teah Suhr with a pitch. That brought Small, the No. 9 hitter, up for the first time. She promptly hit a two-run single to right.
The Highlanders (13-10) ended up sending 14 hitters to the plate in the first, scoring nine runs on just two hits.
Small came up again in the second with runners at first and second. She singled to right again to drive in her third run of the game. Piedmont got five in the frame to go up 14-0.
“She’s been giving us stellar play all year,” Highlanders coach Gene Denard said. “She has been coming along and just giving us what we needed at certain times.”
Talia Perl was the beneficiary on the mound, shutting out the Eagles (8-13-1) through the first four innings.
“I’ve been starting pitching for the entire season,” Perl said. “It’s been good. It’s been hard obviously as a freshman, you don’t really know what to expect. I got a little tired there in that one inning but at the end, I’m really proud of my team.
“I try to think of the score as 0-0 at all times. No runs have scored, no outs, no one on base, just try to throw strikes as much as I can.”
Perl had allowed just three hits entering the fifth. But then the Eagles bats came alive, with 12 batters coming to the plate, producing seven hits. Nayeli Galdon doubled in the first run to get things going. Perl struck out two hitters that reached on passed balls. No. 9 hitter Destiny Wallace had two hits in the inning including a double that brought home a run.
Perl stayed in for the sixth, but after two hits and an error scored two more runs, Edie Elmquist was summoned from shortstop to finish off the game. She pitched 1 2/3 innings and allowed one run in the seventh.
“Our problem has been finishing games,” Denard said. “We have our foot on everybody’s throats and then we just slack up and it comes back to haunt us in the later innings.”
Next is a May 22 game at No. 3 Willits (5 p.m.). The winner will likely have to face second-seeded Healdsburg in the semifinals.
“Friday’s going to be a tough game and we have to prepare for that,” Denard said. He added that he didn’t have much knowledge about Willits but would be calling around to friends of his in the coaching community.
