Massei’s grand slam lifts Ayala softball to CIF title

Will Lester/Staff Photographer

The Ayala softball team waits for Mary Massei at the plate after her grand slam in the fifth inning put Ayala ahead, 5-4.

As the stakes got higher in the CIF softball playoffs, Mary Massei continually rose to the occasion. She hit the ceiling Friday night.

Ayala High School’s right fielder hit a go-ahead grand slam in the fifth inning to lift the Bulldogs to a 5-4 victory over Downey Warren in the CIF-SS Division 3 championship game at Deanna Manning Stadium in Irvine. After she provided the game-winning hit in a 1-0 semifinal win over top-seeded Bonita, Massei helped fourth-seeded Ayala to the first CIF title in school history.

“It was seriously in slow motion,” Massei said. “That change-up literally stopped me in my tracks but when I connected it felt so right.”

With UCLA-bound pitcher Jessica Hall (28-3) having allowed not only her first run of the playoffs but a pair of two-run home runs to Warren catcher Tina Iosefa, Ayala trailed 4-0 entering the fifth inning and was desperate need of some offense. Having managed just one hit off of hard-throwing Warren pitcher Franny Vuaaulu to that point, Ayala batted around in the decisive fifth frame emphatically capped by the Wisconsin-bound Massei, who went 3 for 3 with four RBIs.

Though Ayala relied on its pitching and defense most of the season, the offense came through when it mattered most.

“I knew it wasn’t over,” Hall said. “I just kept pitching. I could see it in everybody’s eyes how badly they wanted it.”

Warren entered Friday’s final having defeated two Sierra League teams in a row but the Bears (24-7) couldn’t complete the trifecta. The San Gabriel League champions knocked off Sierra League champ and No. 4 seed Glendora in a 12-inning quarterfinal before cooling off the Sierra League’s hottest team, Chino Hills, in the semifinals.

Ayala (29-5), which lost the tiebreaker to Glendora for first place in league, hasn’t won an outright league championship since Hall took over as the starting pitcher her freshman year but the Bulldogs now have the title that every team in Division 3 coveted at the beginning of this season. With three innings left in the season, however, that championship looked a long way away.

Imposing Warren catcher Iosefa deposited the first pitch she saw over the right-center field wall for a two-run home run. The sophomore followed with a towering two-run home run well over the fence in right field to swell Warren’s lead to 4-0 in the third inning.

Entering the fifth inning having not advanced a runner past first base, Ayala’s title hopes were beginning to look dim.

Warren third baseman Haley Whitney couldn’t field Sarah Moore’s one-hopper to begin the tide-turning fifth, providing a base runner for Stephanie Martinez, who doubled Moore to third. Warren’s Reyes then robbed Ayala second baseman Natalie Martinez of a base hit when she made a diving catch in short right-center field, but Moore tagged up to cut the Ayala deficit to 4-1. Stevie Knapp and Breianna Celaya drew walks to load the bases for Massei, who hit the third pitch she saw over the left-field fence to put Ayala in front, 5-4.

Hall didn’t allow a hit the rest of the way, finishing a three-hitter by collecting five of her 11 strikeouts in the last three innings.

“The game just turned on a dime,” Ayala coach John Ameluxen said. “The girls didn’t give up.”

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