Notre Dame-Belmont softball advances to Central Coast Section Division I championship game

The Raiders ripped top-seeded Willow Glen 14-4 in the first round Saturday and given McDonald’s familiarity with the Raiders, there was no way neither she nor the Tigers were going to overlook the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mt. Hamilton Division’s fourth-place squad.

In the end, the game turned into a pitcher’s duel with NDB’s Allison Lui helping guide the Tigers to a 2-1 victory at San Jose’s PAL Stadium Tuesday and punching their ticket to the Division I championship game Saturday at a time and place to be determined.

“Incredible (game),” McDonald said. “Any time you have a 2-1 game … that’s what softball is all about.”

NDB (19-1) will play the winner of No. 3 Alvarez and No. 7 Westmont.

Lui outdueled Silver Creek’s Maleah Lopez, who plays for McDonald’s Warrior Academy club team. Lopez surrendered two runs while scattering five hits.

Lui was even better. She pitched six shutout innings before the Raiders finally got to her in the top of the seventh. Lui, also, allowed only five hits.

Despite the paucity of hits, Silver Creek (16-10) still managed to have runners in scoring position in five of seven innings. Lui stranded a pair of base runners in the top of the first and the Raiders had a runner at third in the third, fourth and sixth innings, but kept coming up empty.

“[Lui] is incredible. She’s only a freshman. She does it with such composure,” McDonald said.

Notre Dame-Belmont was leading 2-0 as the Raiders came up for the final at-bat and finally got to Lui. A leadoff triple from Fatai Ongolea gave the Raiders their fourth runner at third base. This time they cashed in on a Kaylani Lim sacrifice fly.

Before that at-bat, however, McDonald came out to talk to her first-year pitcher.

“Gave her a second to gather herself and understand 7, 8, 9 (in the batting order) was coming up. That runner at third meant nothing,” McDonald said.

Following the circle chat, Lui was greeted by the sac fly which cut the NDB lead in half. Lui then got a fly ball to center fielder Megan Sarhatt for the second out and it appeared Lui got a game-ending grounder to shortstop on the ensuing batter.

But the ball was booted by the NDB shortstop to keep the inning alive, which also turned over the Silver Creek lineup.

McDonald didn’t even mess around with Raiders’ leadoff hitter Ahmiya Noriega, giving her an intentional free pass, but now there were runners at first and second and No. 2 hitter Kaliya Yco at the plate. After a first-pitch ball, Yco offered at the second, sending a pop fly into foul territory.

NDB first baseman Sophia Dinelli tracked over toward the Silver Creek dugout and, with her back against the chain link fence, made the catch to end the game and set off a Tigers celebration that featured a Buster hug from NDB catcher Alexa Couto on Lui.

With Lui locking down the Silver Creek bats, the Tigers’ offense did just enough to pull out the victory. Things started well for NDB, as Couto led off the first with a triple to the wall in left field.

But she was caught in a rundown and tagged out when Malaina Alifano hit into a fielder’s choice to kill that rally.

An Olivia Semien single to lead off the second went for naught before the Tigers managed to scratch across two runs in the bottom of the third.

Couto led off the inning with a walk and Alifano reached on a infield hit. Both runners moved up on a Sarhatt groundout for the first out.

Dinelli followed and hit a chopper to the first baseman, who hesitated on a throw home and instead tagged out Dinelli coming down the line, with Couto scoring for a 1-0 Notre Dame lead.

After a walk to Dani DeMera, Semien came up with the biggest hit of the day, an opposite-field single to right to drive in Alifano with what turned out to be the game-winning run.

DeMera would end up getting tagged out in a rundown between third base and home plate on the play, ending the inning, but the damage was done.

After that, it was up to Lui and the Tigers’ defense to bring it home.

“It wasn’t our best (offensive outing),” McDonald said. “Our No. 6 hitter (Semien, who also wears No. 6) came up huge.”

In the Division V bracket, third-seeded Mills, the Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division champion, saw its season come to an end with a 14-1 loss at the hands of No. 2 Stevenson at Los Gatos High School. Mills finishes the season with a record of 14-7.