San Mateo claims historic PAL Bay Division softball championship

With the win, San Mateo (11-3 PAL Bay, 17-5 overall) climbs into a first-place tie with Hillsdale to share a co-PAL Bay Division title. It is the Bearcats’ fifth PAL championship all-time. The other four — most recently a 2017 co-championship — all came in the “B” league Ocean Division.

“It was really nice,” Hernandez said of standing in the pitcher’s circle after notching her seventh strikeout of the day to end it. “It was kind of relieving. Like all the work we had done pays off in the end.”

Hernandez put her stamp on the game both sides of the ball. Not only did she record the complete-game victory, improving her record to 17-4 on the year. She also produced one of the biggest swings of the day at the plate, leading off the sixth with the Bearcats leading 2-1 and blasting a solo home run to left-center field, the first of her three-year varsity career, for a critical insurance run.

“She could have had two if it wasn’t for the wind,” San Mateo head coach Robert Burley said.

Indeed, in Hernandez’s previous at-bat to lead off the fourth inning, she sent a deep drive to the exact same spot in left-center. But, with a crosswind blowing in, Cap center fielder Alana Koenig was able to sprint back and reach up to make the catch just as she leaned up against the wall.

“The sound off the barrel, I thought the first one, right away, I thought was going to make it,” Burley said. “The second one ... I didn’t know.”

On Hernandez’s veritable instant replay in the sixth, Koenig again had a bead on it. The senior timed a leap as well as she could, which initially had Hernandez thinking she had come up short yet again.

“For a second there, yeah, I did, ’cause I saw her go up and I didn’t see the ball,” Hernandez said. “I was like: ‘She got it.’”

But Hernandez supplied just enough fly ball to get it a smidge out of the reach of Koenig, giving San Mateo a chance to celebrate at home plate.

“I had already told the girls before that inning that we were going to bunt, and that we just needed to get one run that inning,” Burley said, “for her well being, just to not have to be perfect. Pitchers, that’s what’s tough about it is sometimes they feel like they have to be perfect. So, if you can take that pressure off, that’s really what we were hoping for was the one run, and she did it herself.”

In the circle, Hernandez locked up with Cap right-hander Lily Thomas for a splendid pitching duel. The San Mateo right-hander set down the first nine batters she faced before surrendering a leadoff single to Thomas to start the fourth. She made one mistake pitch two batters later, and Cap junior Brianna Lopiccolo rifled it to left-center for an RBI double.

Otherwise, the tougher the situation, the better Hernandez pitched. She went on to induce a double-play grounder to junior shortstop Alice Han to strand a runner at second base in the fourth. Cap went on to leave seven runners on base, all in the last four innings. Four of those runners were stranded in scoring position.

“She’s been consistent all year,” Burley said. “Early in the game, I actually was a little worried; her velocity was down a little bit. But she was hitting her spots. But that’s what she’s always done. She hits her spots. Like we say all the time: ‘Just do your job.’ And she does her job.”

Thomas took a no-hitter into the third, but San Mateo No. 9 hitter Destina Zhou broke it up with a bloop single to right. Han followed with a frozen-rope RBI triple into the left-field corner. Jana Davies then slashed an RBI single to left to make it 2-0.

In the seventh, Hernandez set down the first two batters in order, but Thomas gave the Mustangs (7-7, 11-13) a last-gasp chance with a sharp two-out single to right. Hernandez, though, hunkered down and recorded a game-ending strikeout with her 99th pitch of the day.

“Just really happy and proud of us,” Han said. “Just really happy for Celia.”

San Mateo last won a PAL championship in 2017, sharing the Ocean Division title with South City. The Bearcats also had shared Ocean Division crowns in 2010 and ’14, and claimed the outright Ocean championship in 2011.

“I just truly believe they like being around each other,” Burley said to the secret of San Mateo’s succes. “In practice, they hang out after, they don’t just run home. They just generally seem to like being around each other. And they like to practice. ... I’m not pulling teeth to get them to work.”