Capuchino softball hurler Nohemi Livingston too hard to handle for San Mateo

“She knows the game, I give her that,” Capuchino head coach Tanya Borghello said. “I was always a coach who called pitches and I called them … the first third of the season. And she’s like: ‘Well, I can do it.’ We kind of gave her the reins there and she’s done well so far.”

It is the first season Livingston and Motroni have paired on the softball diamond, but Cap’s cornerstone arm was aware of her new catcher’s exploits. The two had previously competed against one another on the travel softball circuit, with Livingston playing for Top 9 Sports for the past six seasons and Motroni playing for the Cal Nuggets.

The two have become fast friends, though, and are proving a formidable duo in the ranks of the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division.

“We both have the same mindset when it comes to a certain pitch selection,” Livingston said. “So that’s what I like what we have in common. … I think she’s done great. There are some pitches I would shake off but most of the time we have the same mind of where we want to go with each batter.”

The two have been a feared one-two punch at the plate as well.

Motroni matched her career-high with three hits Thursday, going 3 for 5 with a double and four RBIs. She got the Mustangs (4-2 PAL Bay, 12-5 overall) on the board in the top of the first inning with an RBI knock to right-center field. She is leading the team with a .511 batting average.

“She was definitely a great addition for us,” Borghello said. “We are thrilled that she stayed in her hometown and joined us at Capuchino, for sure. As a freshman, she had a great start to her season, and she’s been hanging.”

With Motroni batting in the No. 3 spot Thursday, Livingston was protecting her in the cleanup spot, and put a power show in the late innings. Livingston was 2 for 3 with three RBIs, including a mammoth two-run home run to straightaway center field in the seventh inning.

“She definitely put the icing on the cake on that one,” Borghello said.

It has been Livingston’s arm that has been the backbone of Cap’s season though. After battling through a knee injury her sophomore season — and her freshman year being cut short by the pandemic — this season is the first year Livingston has been able to regularly show her dynamic stuff at the varsity level. She has thrown 89 1/3 innings, and Thursday surpassed her 2021 total of 85 2/3 innings pitched.

Livingston now owns an 11-3 record with a 2.19 ERA. Her 88 strikeouts rank eighth in the Central Coast Section, according to MaxPreps.com, and she ranks second in the PAL behind CCS strikeout leader Ainsley Waddell of Sequoia.

“Since league started, we’ve really struggled at home plate … and Nohemi has been the force that has kept us alive in a sense,” Borghello said. “We’ve won some games, and we’ve won those games not on our hitting but on our pitching.”

But the right-hander had to navigate some trouble against San Mateo (2-4, 5-8). The Bearcats kept it close, responding to Cap’s two-run rally in the top of the first with a run in the bottom of the inning on an RBI double by Jordan Galea.

Cap scratched out an unearned run in the top of the third, but Mateo fired right back when Bethany Shih connected for a solo home run to cut it to 3-2. But the Mustangs broke through with four runs in the top of the fourth and scored in every inning from there.

Livingston did the rest, surpassing her previous career-high strikeout total of 10, from a March 15 non-league victory of Mountain View.

“I just think she was on her game,” Borghello said. “When she starts strong, she finishes strong. … When things go well, things go really well.”

Senior Alexandra Lapiz added three hits with a double for Cap.