HMB falls hard

The second-seeded Cougars made it to Saturday’s CCS Division III championship game, but they ran into a buzzsaw in No. 4 Notre Dame-Salinas. The Spirit banged out 14 runs on 15 hits in thumping Half Moon Bay 14-1 in a game that was called after five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule.

“We’ve had our eye on this championship game the entire season,” Rocha Tower said. “Of course we wanted to win it. That was the other half of our goal.

“We were hoping this would be our year.”

It was Notre Dame’s 13th CCS title in the program’s history and the fourth time the Spirit have beaten the Cougars in the finals.

Notre Dame (22-9) came into the title game swinging hot bats. In its first three CCS contests, the Spirit outscored their opponents 37-6 before adding 14 more in the championship game.

“He (the Notre Dame coach) had said just recently their hitting started coming together,” Rocha Tower said.

And once the Spirit started hitting, they didn’t stop. In addition to the 15 hits, they also drew three walks and reached base four other times on four Half Moon Bay errors. In all, Notre Dame had 21 batters reach base.

Half Moon Bay pitcher Lyndsay Klimenko struggled with her command all day and it didn’t help matters when she caught a screaming comebacker in the third inning that injured the middle finger on her throwing hand. She never seemed comfortable and the Spirit made her pay.

Notre Dame bashed the ball all over the ballpark, hitting two home runs and four triples. After tying the score at 1 on a Morgan Balestreri inside-the-park homer to left in the third inning, the Spirit broke the game open with a seven-run, six-hit fourth inning to take a commanding 8-1 lead, sending 10 batters to the plate in the process.

They all but put the game away with a six-run, seven-hit fifth inning, sending 11 batters to the plate, extending their lead to 14-1.

“We knew they were going to be good,” Rocha Tower said. “They were just hitting the holes… and there was nothing we could do about it. It’s hard to watch.”

Half Moon Bay (23-7) hit the ball hard as well. Unfortunately, they always seemed to find the glove of a Notre Dame defender. With two outs in the first inning, Klimenko got ahold of a pitch and drove it to right — only to see it die in the glove of the Notre Dame right fielder. In the second, Harlee Donovan hit a searing line drive that appeared destined for right field — only to see the Spirit second baseman make a stabbing catch. In the fourth, Olivia Hedding hit one on the screws — that went right to the center fielder.

And then to perfectly encapsulate the game for the Cougars, Abbey Donovan hit a dying fly ball to right field — only to see Marisa Given make a headlong, diving catch to end the game.

“We were making some really good contact,” Rocha Tower said. “If some of those fell, maybe it’s a different game.”

Half Moon Bay did manage to get on the scoreboard first, plating its only run in the bottom of the second inning. With one out, Kalista Leonardos drilled a double to left and came in to score on Katie Carlevaris’ single to right to take a 1-0 lead.

The Cougars had a chance to add on, but a base running mistake in the third cost them a chance to put more runs on the board. Emma Alaimo led off the inning by reaching on an error. After a flyout, Channie Anderson bunted for a single, but Alaimo made too big a turn at second and was backdoored for the second out of the inning.

The mistake was magnified when Klimenko walked, which would have loaded the bases with one out. Instead, Harlee Donovan grounded out to end the inning and end the Cougars’ last real scoring chance.