Home, sweet home: Capuchino softball off to hot start; relishing new digs, remodeled field

While the roster has not only maintained — it has flourished, with the program adding a junior-varsity team and growing from 18 varsity players in 2022 to 31 overall players in the program this season — there is an air of excitement over that which is new, that being Capuchino’s remodeled athletics facilities.

“It’s beautiful, it’s new,” Cap head coach Tanya Borghello said of the new synthetic turf softball diamond. “We’re getting games in. A lot of people aren’t. The turf has been really, really nice, especially with this historic rain.”

Both Capuchino and Mills overhauled their athletics facilities as part of the Measure L bond project passed by the San Mateo High School District in December 2020. Cap now has two new diamonds, with the baseball and softball teams helping to evict the neighborhood’s flocks of Canada Geese by replacing the natural grass with synthetic turf.

Each field now has its own seating concourse, regulation fences, and press boxes. Borghello said she’s most happy about the softball diamond being strictly for softball use, as it has just two softball diamonds and doesn’t have to double as a soccer field like with many other schools.

“We’re happy we didn’t have a multi-use field,” Borghello said. “We’re thrilled they fought hard for just a softball field. … There’s a lot of schools that don’t have the luxury of having (just) a softball field.”

The Lady Mustangs are certainly making the most of their new digs. In sweeping two games Saturday during the team’s host round-robin tournament with Mills and Mountain View, Capuchino is off to a 5-0 start. The Mustangs have played exclusively home games thus far.

Cap opened play Saturday with a 4-2 win over rival Mills, though Borghello kept all three current seniors out of the starting lineup in that game. She said it was a teachable moment in an effort to continue growing the softball program, by showing the team’s non-seniors what to expect in future seasons.

“It gave them a good taste of what life could be,” Borghello said. “So, it was a much different view. But with the three playing seniors we have, the dynamic definitely changes, as you can see with the outcome of the second game.”

Cap rolled to a mercy-rule 11-0 win over Mountain View in the doubleheader nightcap. With senior Nohemi Livingston returning to the circle — sophomore Lola Sierra pitching win in the opener — the Mustangs were certainly firing on all cylinders. Livingston was a standout junior, and the driving force for last year’s postseason run.

Livingston not only breezed to a three-hit shutout with eight strikeouts, including fanning the last three batters of the game, she also roped an RBI double into the left-field corner as Cap sent 10 batters to the plate during a seven-run third.

“I’ve always known that we all have potential to go to the next level,” Livingston said. “And last year was definitely a taste of it. And I think we can do it again this year. … Now that we know that if we want it to be serious, then we have to actually get serious. Because I think last year, we weren’t that much. And this year, if we want to get to where we want to be — state champion and all that stuff — then we have to work for is.”

One of the big changes for Livingston is she is now working with a catching platoon of sophomore Avery Motroni and senior Lexi Centeno. Last year, Motroni made a splash as a freshman, not only leading the team with a .463 batting average, but catching every inning of every game.

Motroni showed off her versatility Saturday by playing shortstop in the Mountain View game. Pitching to Centeno is nothing new for Livingston, however, as the two have played together in San Bruno recreation leagues since they were 8. Motroni was teammates with them that season as well, as she played up two ages when she was 6.

“We’ve basically grown up together, so it’s nothing new with both of us,” Livingston said. “So, we always bond all the time.”

The new softball diamond is located in the same place as the old one, but with some big differences.

The famed left-field hill is now gone, with a regulation fence wrapping around left and center field. There is currently no right-field fence, and Motroni exploited the expanse of facility Saturday by scorching an inside-the-park home run to right, and enjoying a jog third base as she scored standing up.

Borghello said the field will be adding a temporary right-field wall later this month, so those inside-the-parkers to right will soon become a thing of the past.

“It was very long awaited,” Livingston said. “We were very much anxious to get on here because it was done, and we still weren’t cleared to be inside. Obviously, nothing is ever perfect … but we do love it a lot. It’s nice to have turf.”

Borghello said the team is now looking to make their mark on the new facility. The goal is to bring home some championship banners to decorate the new outfield walls.

“The seniors have said that, they get their new field they want their new championship to go up on it,” Borghello said. “But time will tell.”

In her seventh year as Cap’s varsity head coach, Borghello said she is more excited the softball program is growing for the first time since prior to the pandemic. While three Peninsula Athletic League programs eliminated their junior-varsity teams this season, Cap added one.

“I held 18 last year because I had such a good group of freshmen come in, I just couldn’t — if you cut ’em, are they going to come back?” Borghello said. “You have to think towards the future, always. And it’s been good because they got some experience last year, they had a winning season, they found some love, I think.”