On an extremely windy Tuesday afternoon, the 10th-ranked Santa Teresa softball team upset No. 2 Leland, 6-3, to move into a tie for second place in the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mount Hamilton Division standings. The defeat broke an eight-game winning streak for the host Chargers (15-2, 4-1 BVAL-MH), while the Saints (12-4, 4-1) increased their winning streak to six games.
The win had Santa Teresa coach Laureen Ramirez thinking big.
"(We want to) take league, win CCS [laughs], thing big," Ramirez said. "But definitely go one game at a time."
Meanwhile, Leland, which has established itself as a serious contender, ranked just behind undefeated Archbishop Mitty in the Prep2Prep standings, the loss was merely a minor setback.
When asked about winning it all, Leland coach Joe Gron said: "Absolutely. This is a great team. We had a little letdown today, but last year we got to the semifinals and we expect to go farther than that”.
The Saints got on the board first, with Marissa Ortiz scoring and Melissa Martinek advancing to third on a double to left-center off the bat of shortstop Megan Heal. However, Leland’s Holly Geranen racked up two strikeouts to end the inning.
The third proved to be the most eventful inning, as both teams scored three times. In the top half of the inning, Heal hit an RBI double to left-center to score Martinek. Ally Beaulieu, who reached on a single, then scored along with Heal on a two-run double by Marina Dimas to make it 4-0.
Leland answered right away with a three-run rally in the bottom of the third. Kelsey Borello started the really with a base hit and Taylor Bojorquez reached on an error. Both runners scored when a drive to right field by Geranen was misplayed for a three-base error. Alexis Morales then doubled to knock in Geranen to make it 4-3.
Santa Teresa added to its lead on a Leland error in the fifth inning and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Dimas in the seventh to score Jessica Liquori for the final 6-3 margin.
Jamie Billings (6-3) picked up the win, allowing just three unearned runs and six hits to go with five strikeouts.
