Etiwanda's comeback falls one run short

"I knew we had a really good hitting team, so I thought we had an outside shot of coming back," Etiwanda coach Dave Masucci said. "It seemed like everything was going (El Modena's) way, but it still took 12 runs to get us."

El Modena pitcher Haylie Wagner was tagged for 19 hits and all 11 runs, but she helped herself by going 3 for 4 with four RBIs. It was El Modena right fielder Mikaela Viloria's two-run homer that gave her team an 8-5 lead in a fifth inning in which the Vanguards sent 10 batters to the plate and scored six runs after Etiwanda had fought back to tie the score.

"That inning was the difference in the game," El Modena coach Steve Harrington said. "I knew there was no lead that was going to be safe."

With No. 1 seed Esperanza having lost in the first round, the top two seeds in Division 1 are now out of the playoffs. Etiwanda, which won the CIF championship two seasons ago, earned the No. 1 seed last year only to exit in the first round.

"Since we won CIF two years ago, the standards are high," Masucci said. "Anything less than a CIF championship wasn't going to be a successful run for us. Winning CIF is so tough, because you have to play five flawless games and you can't run into anybody who's doing everything right."

The game's final play wasn't the first time an Etiwanda runner was thrown out at the plate. After the Eagles drew three walks in the first inning, a single by Crystal Tarango scored one run, but Melissa Taukeiaho was thrown out at the plate on a play that was closer than the one in the seventh.

In the bottom of the first, El Modena got the first of its two unearned runs before Wagner's two-run single in the third gave El Modena a 3-1 lead. Etiwanda mustered a run in the fourth thanks to an RBI single by Kelsey Barak, who was 2 for 4 with three RBIs, but every time the Eagles cut into the lead, El Modena answered, this time with a pair of runs in the fourth inning to take a 5-2 lead. El Modena stranded at least two Etiwanda runners in four of the first five innings.

"Early on we missed some opportunities," Masucci said. "It was too easy for them to score and too hard for us to score."

Etiwanda finally seized the momentum in the fifth when Barak followed an RBI single by right fielder Emilie Valadez with a two-out, two-run double that tied the score.

"I figured there were going to be some lead changes in this game," Harrington said. "We studied them a lot and we knew what their players were capable of. I didn't know how high-scoring it would be, but I thought it might be back and forth."

El Modena provided the forth in the fifth inning, halting any Etiwanda momentum with an impressive display of hitting. Along with two sacrifice bunts that were interspersed, there were seven hits in the six-run frame.

Etiwanda had its own six-run inning in the seventh that began with the first of two doubles in the inning by Isbel. Taukeiaho, who was 2 for 3, drove in Valadez to cut the deficit to 12-7. Calderon, who was 4 for 5, doubled with two outs to score Taukeiaho as the deficit dwindled to four runs. Desiree Gonzalez, who was 3 for 4, drove in a run to make the score 12-9.
After Tarango was hit by a pitch on an 0-2 count to load the bases, Isbel crushed a double to the center-field fence, but Tarango was thrown out at the plate to end the game.