The La Cañada 14-and-under All-Stars softball team, consisting of players representing the La Cañada Baseball Softball Association, completed its remarkable summer tournament run this past week at the 14U Class B Western National Championship tournament in Roseville.
La Cañada began the tournament with round-robin pool play in what opposing coaches referred to as the “pool of death.” The team came out slow in its first game, losing 6-4 against Mission Viejo last Tuesday. However, they bounced back with a 9-6 win over the South San Diego B District champion San Diego Pride. Sienna Gundersen led the all-stars with four hits and one RBI, with Riley Labrecque, Laila Kazazian and Victoria Kelly each adding two hits with two RBIs to seal the win.
La Cañada, the Southern California B state champions, faced off against the Pocket Aces, the Sacramento B state champs. The all-stars pitcher Natalie Stogel dominated in the circle, striking out five batters while allowing no runs on only three hits on the way to an 8-0 victory. Alexandra Kim collected two hits and three RBIs while Caitlin Yee and Jayne Bender had three and two hits, respectively. Emma Carmack, Sapna Pradhan, Gundersen, Kelly and Labrecque each notched a base hit.
The group then began double-elimination bracket play on Thursday with a game against Temecula Valley. In an error-filled game, La Cañada’s offense exploded for nine runs in the top of the fifth inning to once again invoke the mercy rule with a 16-7 win. On Friday, the team continued its run by defeating Santa Monica with an 8-0 mercy win in five innings.
La Cañada’s only game on Saturday was against another Sacramento-area team, the Rocklin Thundercats. Yee put on a show in the pitcher’s circle, striking out five and allowing no runs on five hits over five innings. Siena Matthews, Gundersen, Kelly, Kazazian, Kim, Labreque and Yee all came through with hits to power the La Cañada offense, which went on the 11-0 victory and earned a ticket to play on “Championship Sunday.”
The first game on Sunday was against Long Beach Hartwell and it turned into a back-and-forth battle as La Cañada tallied 15 hits and six runs over the seven-inning game, but Long Beach rallied for a 7-6 victory. The loss knocked the team into the losers’ half of the bracket where it would have to win each of its remaining games to capture the title.
La Cañada’s second game on Sunday was against a convincing 12-1 victory over Northern California’s Millbrae Mischief. The all-stars jumped out early, scoring two runs in the first inning, five in the second and four in the third. Yee controlled the pitcher’s circle, allowing one run on only three hits. La Cañada finished the game with a total of 17 hits as Hannah Clark and Sienna Dunbar each contributed a hit along with the rest of the starting lineup.
That win put the team into a key matchup against Long Beach. After falling behind 3-1, Stogel got La Cañada rolling with a solo home run in the top of the third inning. Their bats came alive with three hits from Yee, two hits each from Kelly, Gundersen, Matthews, Kazazian and Pradhan and a triple by Labrecque to take a 10-8 advantage through six innings. In the seventh, they tacked on two more runs. Stogel pitched a complete game and forced Long Beach into two pop-outs and a groundout in the bottom of the seventh, sealing a 12-8 win.
After handing Long Beach its first defeat in the double-elimination bracket, La Cañada and Long Beach squared off again for the fourth game the all-stars would play that day. This would be for all the marbles; the winner would be crowned tournament champion. Yee was back in the circle for La Cañada, holding Long Beach to six hits and three runs over five innings. Meanwhile, the all-stars pounded out 19 hits in five innings. In the bottom of the fifth, with two outs, Yee forced Long Beach’s No. 1 hitter to fly out to Lebrecque in center field, capping La Cañada’s 19-3 victory.
The win yielded La Cañada a 14U Western Nationals Class B championship, finishing first out of 27 teams. They concluded the summer with a record of 36-5, winning all four tournaments it entered, finishing second in the Western District, winning the Southern California B States championship and ending it all with the Nationals title.
First published in the August 3 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
