San Mateo softball team beats Mills 10-6 in PAL Bay Division opener

But the Vikings could not have picked a worse time than Tuesday’s Bay Division opener against host San Mateo — a team that advanced to the Central Coast Section Division II championship game.

Not only was Mills playing its first game in two weeks, the Vikings found found out the level of play is much higher in the Bay than the Ocean.

San Mateo, after falling in a quick 2-0 hole, quickly regained the lead with a six-run second. The Bearcats banged out 15 hits, hitting for the cycle as a team, as they beat Mills, 10-6 Tuesday in San Mateo.

“It was kind of an eye opener,” Mills head coach Michelle Beauchemin. “What I remember telling them was, ‘You guys wanted this (the move to the Bay).’ … We weren’t ready to play.”

Despite trailing 2-0 before taking an at-bat, San Mateo (1-0 PAL Bay, 6-2 overall) didn’t panic. The Bearcats got a run back in the bottom of the first and then erupted for six runs in the second. They had to keep working until the end as Mills never gave up, but it was a comfortable win in the end.

“I think the girls did a great job of being resilient,” said San Mateo head coach Robert Burley. “Today was a really good team win.”

And Alice Han was in the middle of both rallies. After Jazzy Maske gave Mills (0-1, 5-2) a 2-0 lead with a two-run blast over the fence in left field, Han immediately put pressure on the Mills defense. Han jumped on the first pitch she saw, hammering a one-hopper to the third baseman, who threw the ball away at first, with Han barely safe at third.

She came in on a Demi Alfonso groundout.

In the second, the Bearcats batted around. Jana Davies, a freshman and the No. 9 hitter, led off the inning with a single to bring up Han. Again, she went after the first offering and deposited over the fence in right field for a tw0-run shot and a 3-2 lead.

“Jana, at No. 9, is no slouch,” Burley said. “But [Han] our leadoff hitter for a reason.”

And the Bearcats weren’t done as later in the inning Celia Hernandez, who got the start in the circle, helped her own cause with a with a two-run single to right. That was followed three batters later by a two-run bloop double to left field off the bat of Anya Cheng to give the Bearcats a 7-1 lead.

They would need all of them as Mills never backed down. The Vikings, which finished the game with six runs on 10 hits, were held hitless in the second and third innings before answering San Mateo’s rally with one of its own in the top of the fourth, scoring three times to close to 7-5.

Mills freshman Isabel Chen led off the inning with a home run to right-center field before Elise Jang, another freshman, lined a pitch off Hernandez’s foot in the circle.

She seemed fine, but then gave up a double off the left-field fence to Alyssa Peñas and a walk to Sydney Chu before she asked to come out of the game after throwing ball one to Jolie Wong.

“She said she didn’t feel right,” Burley said.

So Burley turned to Anushka Singh, who started the CCS championship game last season. While she did give up an RBI single to Lucy Esquivel and a RBI fielder’s choice to Maske, Singh got out of the inning without further damage.

“[Hernandez and Singh] are a good mixture together,” Burley said.

Singh pitched two scoreless inning before running out of gas in the seventh. But those scoreless innings were enough to get the Bearcats to the end.

The Bearcats responded right back in the bottom of the fourth inning, to push their lead to 9-5, which was big, Burley said. Han, who came up a double short of the cycle, led off the inning with a triple and scored on an Alfonso single.

Han and Alfonso combined to go 6 for 8 at the plate, with five runs scored and five RBIs. Aliyah Scheller drove in the other run in the inning on a groundout. The Bearcats rounded out the scoring with a Han RBI single in the bottom of the sixth.

Mills tried to make things interesting in its final at-bat. Gabby Moreno led off the inning with a walk. With one out, Jang doubled to put runners on second and third. Wong hit a routine grounder to third that was thrown away, with Moreno scoring.

When Chu took two balls to start her at-bat, Burley turned to his freshman rightfielder, Cheng, to get the final two outs and record what turned out to be a save situation.

Despite the success the Bearcats had last season, with the entire team returning for 2026, Burley said there is no increased pressure to be better than last season.

“No pressure. We have goals,” Burley said. “What I would say is, we’re going to get people’s best (efforts against us this season).”