Mills softball chases down HMB to take control in PAL Ocean

The Vikings entered the week one game back of HMB (6-2, 6-7) in the PAL Ocean standings. They drew even Monday with a 10-3 victory before sweeping the two-game series Wednesday.

“To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best,” Mills head coach Navneet Mehta said. “Now we’re the best, so everybody’s gunning for us now.”

Mills freshman Gianna Basco — who produced the “little league home run” in the fourth inning when she reached on an infield single then came all the way around to score on a slew of HMB errors — said she hadn’t seen so many strange plays in one game, fittingly enough, since her little league days.

“Honestly, probably not since I was like 8,” Basco said.

The strangeness started before the first pitch was even thrown, as Mills was playing as the home team at Half Moon Bay’s home Karen Villa Softball Field. With Mills’ home field under construction this season, the Lady Vikings are playing all their games on the road.

But things really started to go sideways in the bottom of the second inning when Mills, with two runners on and two out, got on the board courtesy of an infield throwing error by HMB. It was a batted ball to the left side of the infield that should have been a routine third out, but the throw sailed over the first baseman’s head, allowing Nicolette Moreno and Kalista Lowe to score, giving the Vikings a 2-0 lead.

Mills ultimately scored two runs in each the second, third, fourth and fifth innings, benefitting from HMB’s six errors in the game.

“Mills has been our toughest competition this year in league,” HMB head coach Christina Yeakley said, “and I think the girls were kind of on their heels in Monday’s game, not really expecting … (Mills’) ability level to be as high as it is. So, they did come out today really wanting it. And I think it was kind of peaks and valleys, it kind of got into their heads a little bit.”

With Mills starting pitcher Adyson Kim taking control in the circle — the senior right-hander set down nine of the first 10 batters she faced — things got wild in the bottom of the third when the Vikings started knocking the ball around the yard.

Kim and Myrka Villegas socked back-to-back triples. Villegas then got thrown out attempting to score on a pitch to the backstop. But, Mills senior Aaliyah Stuart got the run back two pitches later, connecting with a fastball from Cougars pitcher Emily Chavez and driving in over the left field wall for a solo home run.

It was the second home run of Stuart’s three-year varsity career. The other was also at HMB, coming Monday in the opening game of the series.

“I look forward to more,” Stuart said.

Then in the fourth inning, things got wacky. Really, really wacky.

In the top of the fourth, HMB got on the board with an RBI triple by Emily Seva. After a walk and a stolen base by Mia Modena put two runners in scoring position, Kim recorded one of her seven strikeouts on the day. The strikeout loomed large on the following play, which would have resulted in a triple play had there not already been one out in the inning.

The play started simply enough, with Emily Rentel grounding back to the circle. Kim fielded it, froze the runner at third, then threw to first base for the out. But on the throw, Seva attempted to score anyway, and got caught in a pickle play before getting chased down by the third baseman Stuart while running toward home for the third out of the inning. After applying the tag, however, Stuart turned around and threw ahead of the back runner Modena, who was trying to advance, only to get called out by the field umpire at third base for the mythical “fourth out.”

Unfortunately for the Cougars, the pickle play did not go as smoothly when they were in the field in the bottom of the fourth.

“Against Mills on Monday, we had the same situation with a pickle,” Yeakley said. “So that’s what we did yesterday (at practice), we worked on the pickle play and stuff. So, when it happened, and it was kind of interestingly executed, unsuccessfully, it was just kind of like — *Sigh!* — that’s the best way I can say it.”

The hijinks ensued, after Lowe reached on a one-out infield error, when Basco stepped to the plate. The left-handed hitting freshman batted one to the left side of the infield, legging out a single on a ball deep in the hole HMB shortstop Juju Pintarelli couldn’t field cleanly. Pintarelli still attempted a throw, however, and it got past the first baseman, allowing Lowe to reach third base.

Lowe refused to stop at third, though, and HMB relayed the ball to the plate to force the freshman into a rundown between third and home. But as Basco advanced to second base, the Cougars threw the ball into the outfield, allowing not only Lowe to score, but Basco to come all the way around on the proverbial “little league home run.”

When asked if she was thinking four bags out of the batter’s box, Basco said: “No, I thought I was going to get out. It was just luck.”

Mills scored twice more in the fifth, on consecutive RBI groundouts from Moreno and freshman Morgan Chu. HMB would close the day’s scoring in the seventh on a two-run home run by Pintarelli.

But there were plenty other strange plays, including two foul balls batted at the same fan in the HMB parking lot.

Manuel Villegas, father of Mills player Myrka Villegas, was watching the game from the driver’s seat of his Chevy Avalanche in the front row of the parking lot just beyond the chain-link fence along the right-field line. The first ball hit his way was a line drive on a trajectory to hit the roof of his truck until he reached out the window and slapped it away. Two innings later, he had another line drive hit his way, this one a bull’s-eye through the open driver’s side window, that hit him in the hands but he couldn’t field cleanly.

“I needed my glove,” Manuel Villegas said. “I almost got two outs for us.”