Mills softball stays hot

The defending Ocean Division champ Vikings entered Tuesday’s home game against the Bay Division’s Aragon having ticked a number of boxes that are indicative of a good team:

Signature win? Check.

Winning against a tougher competition? Check.

A stacked starting lineup and a deep bench? Check.

And the Vikings checked a couple more boxes against the Dons. Down 4-0 after half an inning and trailing 5-1 after two, Mills clawed its way back into the game, tying and taking the lead with a three-run fourth and then coming up with a four-run fifth.

They then weathered an Aragon comeback bid — the Dons had the the winning run at the plate — to post an impressive 10-8 victory.

“We’re scrappy. We claw back,” said Mills head coach Michelle Beauchemin. “We didn’t play a lot of ‘A’ (division) teams last year. … We’re trying to prove we belong.”

After winning the Peninsula Athletic League’s Ocean Division title in impressive fashion last season, the PAL coaches voted Mills into the Bay Division, but the PAL administrators decided one good year was not enough to warrant the move into one of the toughest divisions in the Central Coast Section, Beauchemin said.

So Mills (7-1-1 overall) is showing it can compete at that level and the Vikings were impressive in rallying for the win against Aragon (5-7), which had won four of its last five games.

Aragon got off to a quick start, scoring four times in the top of the first innings, taking advantage of Mills starter Kalia Woo, who was throwing strikes. Sophomore shortstop Taylor Workman led off the game with a single, stole second and came home on Olivia Mukherjee’s two-run double. Brigette Brodsky and Rachel Horwitz, a pair of freshmen, came through with RBI singles as the Dons sent nine batters to the plate in the first.

The Vikings came back with a run in the first on a Jazzy Maske leadoff triple and a Lucy Esquivel infield hit.

Maske, also a sophomore shortstop, and Aragon’s Workman put on show at the plate as both hit leadoff for their teams. Maske was 3 for 3 with a walk and was a home run shy of the cycle. She drove in three runs, scored four times and stole three bases.

Workman was 2 for 2 with two walks, three runs scored, with a pair of stolen bases.

But the Mills’ lineup had more depth and ultimately that’s how the Vikings won. Mills’ top three hitters — Maske, Esquivel and Audrey Jang — were a combined 7 for 9 with eight RBIs, four doubles, and six runs scored.

Aragon would tack on a fifth run in the top of the second on Mukherjee’s third RBI of the game to lead 5-1 before the Vikings mounted their comeback.

Aragon head coach Liz Roscoe lamented her team’s nonchalance for allowing Mills back into the game.

“We made a lot of mistakes we shouldn’t have made,” Roscoe said. “We just went flat. … They were just playing complacent.

“[We’re] a better team than we showed today.”

Mills cut its deficit to 5-3 with two runs in the bottom of the third. With one out, Maske was down 0-2 in the count, but worked a walk. She stole second and Esquivel walked to bring up Jang.

Maske would go on to steal third and score on a throwing error and Jang drove in Esquivel.

The Vikings took the lead for good with three runs in the bottom of the fourth. Sofia Kwan, making her first start of the season after wrapping up basketball, led off the inning with single, followed by an Alyssa Peñas’ single.

A flyout and groundup turned the lineup over and brought Maske to the plate. She jumped on the first pitch and drilled a double off the fence in left-center field, driving in Kwan and Peñas with the tying run.

Esquivel gave the Vikings the lead for good with an RBI single.

The Vikings put together a four-run, two-out rally in bottom of the sixth. A strikeout and a groundout brought up No. 9 hitter, freshman Jolie Wong, who hit a ball into the hole at shortstop that she legged out an infield hit.

That, again, brought up Maske, who again delivered with an RBI single — the first of three straight. Esquivel and Jang followed with booming RBI doubles and the Vikings were sitting pretty, 10-5 as the Dons went into their final at-bat.

And they didn’t go down with a fight. Workman walked to lead off the inning, Aliyah Adle singled and Mukherjee came up with her fourth RBI of the game. Destiny Garcia followed with an RBI single and the Dons were down 10-7.

That brought on a pitching change for Mills, but Beauchemin, instead of going with a flame-throwing senior, turned to a soft-tossing freshman in Syd Wong.

It was actually a stroke of genius. The Dons had just spent three-plus innings getting shutdown by the hard-throwing Hailey Pedroza.

And now the Dons couldn’t time up the soft-throwing Syd Wong. She induced a grounder to third, but it was bobbled for an error and Aragon had the bases loaded with no outs.

But Syd Wong stayed the course. She got a strikeout, an RBI foul out from Chloe Wan and a fielder’s choice to G Hillman at third notched the save and the win.

“She’s really not a pitcher,” Beauchemin said of Syd Wong, adding that she had pitched throughout her youth days.

“She’s who we used on Mitty. These girls are used to hard throwers. It’s hard when someone throws soft.”

Said Roscoe: “Sure, we came back at the end. But we never should have been that position to begin with. That’s what upsets me.”

Editor's note: The caption for the lead photo has been corrected to show it was Lucy Esquivel sliding safely across home plate.