DENVER, Colo. – Just when it felt like the Cal State Dominguez Hills softball team was four outs from being eliminated from the NCAA Division II Championship on Saturday,
Chenoa Au made sure that wasn't about to happen.
Trailing by two in the sixth inning,
Claudia Valencia knocked in one run with a base hit and then the fellow senior Au came up with perhaps the biggest hit in her career, a 3-run double that sparks the Toros to a 9-6 come-from-behind win over Seton Hill to advance to the final four stage of the Division II World Series.
No. 8 Dominguez Hills will return to Assembly Athletic Complex on the campus of Metro State Sunday to play against seventh-seed and 18
th-ranked North Georgia. The Toros must beat the Nighthawks twice to advance the best-of-3 championship stage. The first game is at 12:30 p.m. PDT. Should the Toros beat the Nighthawks, they will play again at 5:30 p.m. PDT.
The Griffins quickly went to work on starting pitcher
Ashley Wies, issuing a leadoff walk followed by a double to put runners at second and third with nobody out. Wies got out of the inning with two strikeouts and a popup to keep it scoreless.
Though the Toros retired the first two batters to start their offense,
Raquel Jaime doubled to right and scored on
Maiya Lopez's RBI single up the middle to give the Toros a 1-0 lead.
Seton Hill got the third inning started with a single and a walk. Following a strikeout, the Griffins' No. 3 hitter Morgan Toal hit a ground ball to left, the third base coach decided to challenge
Claudia Valencia's arm, which was right on the money to Lopez for the second out. The Toros couldn't quite escape the jam as a line drive was stopped by a diving
Chenoa Au at second base but couldn't hold on and her backhand throw to
Kaylee Hull at first was tough to grab and it allowed the Griffins to tie the game. Wies took a comebacker to end the inning and keep it tied at 1-1.
The Griffins did serious damage in the fourth inning, scoring five runs, including four with two outs on the board to take a 6-3 lead.
Alyssa Olague came in to pitch the fifth and she got out of the inning allowing no runs despite giving up back-to-back walks. The coaches knew prior to the game that putting
Kianna Abellera in the designated player spot and
Jonessa Hebreo in the 10
th spot and the flex option, it would force the pitcher to hit at some point. That some point came in the home half of the fifth when Olague had to hit for the first time in her collegiate career after
Chenoa Au hit a two-out single. Olague never swung and got the benefit of a four-pitch walk to reach base. Pinch-hitter
Katelyn Sturm came in and hit a single to shallow center to score in Au from second.
Kaylee Hull came up and hit a high fly ball to center field that was caught at the wall to prevent a go-ahead home run and keep the deficit at 6-4.
The sixth inning rally began with
Amara Labonog doubling down the left field line. She was then pinch-ran by
Haylee Garcia.
Raquel Jaime got a single to put runners at the corners and Garcia scored on Valencia's hit. After Lopez walked, it set up for Au's bases-clearing double.
Alex Davis kept the scoring going when she legged out a base hit to short and provide enough time for Au to score and give the Toros a 9-6 lead.
Olague ran into a bit of trouble in the seventh with runners on second and third with the potential tying run at the plate, the right-hander got the strikeout to complete the win.
