IRVINE – Host Concordia was beginning to feel confident in winning the NCAA Softball West Regional sub-bracket after beating Cal State Dominguez Hills to force a winner-take-all game later Saturday evening.
Two hours later, the Eagles asked themselves: 'what just happened?!'
That's because, all of the sudden, the Toros soared past the Eagles in style.
After scratching and clawing in the first game Saturday and couldn't quite close it out as the designated home team, the now-visiting Toros struck quickly with four runs in the first, two in the second and two more in the fourth and Alyssa Olague pitched a one-hit, four-strikeout beauty to blow out the No. 2 Eagles 8-0 in mercy-rule fashion Saturday to send Dominguez Hills to its first Super Regional appearance since 2012 and 2013, all under coach Jim Maier's leadership.
Dominguez Hills will now take on its CCAA foes and the region's top seed Cal State San Marcos, in a best-of-3 format for the NCAA West Regional title May 19-20. First pitch times are to be determined but will be available on the CCAA Network. The West Region champion will head to Denver for the NCAA Championship final site May 26-31.
In their regular-season meeting, the Toros took 3-of-4 from the CCAA champion Cougars at Toro Diamond back in April.
The Cougars, currently at 44-12, took care of business at their own field by having to crawl through the loser's bracket after getting shocked by No. 8 Northwest Nazarene. San Marcos then had to beat Cal State Monterey Bay and the Nighthawks again to setup a bracket final with CCAA Tournament champions Sonoma State. The Cougars took a 4-3, 10-inning thriller to force the winner-take-all which they went on to win 3-1.
In Irvine, the Toros wasted no time on the offensive side. Claudia Valencia rebounded from an 0-for-5 in the early game and led off with a base hit. Although Kianna Abellera struck out, she got picked up by Raquel Jaime and Amara Labonog with back-to-back singles to load the bases to bring in the first run. Jaime would score on a wild pitch, Labonog scored on Maiya Lopez's single and Kaylee Hull, who drew a walk, eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Dafne Bravo.
Already leading 4-0, the Toros were not done. In the second inning, Abellera hit a one-out double to right center and Jaime followed with a two-run homer to center field.
After a quiet third inning, the Toros ignited the bats again in the fourth. Chenoa Au got on base with a one-out single and Abellera delivered the Toros' second two-run home run by hitting one into left center, putting the Toros into the 8-0 mercy-rule effect.
Olague needed to only throw 63 pitches in the five innings. Her only base runner in the game was a single to center in the fourth inning.
