Cougars softball ends winning streak in playoffs

San Lorenzo Valley pitching ace, Kendra Salangsang threw six scoreless innings in a battle that pitted the No. 9 Cougars with No. 1 seeded Santa Catalina School in the Central Coast Section quarterfinals.
Salangsang allowed a single run in the bottom of the seventh and SLV lost a 1-0 pitching showdown that ended their season.
Santa Catalina pitcher, Alex Pingree, threw a shutout and hit the game winning home run for the similarly named Santa Catalina Cougars.
In the seventh, Pingree took it upon herself to offensively brake the scoring silence. With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, she crushed a line drive past the outstretched glove of SLV outfielder Chere Garcia. Absent the fence at the Salinas Sports Complex, the ball rolled into the other field, by the time it was recovered, Pingree had scored to win the game.
“That play aside, Chere (Garcia) really kept us in the game early,” Coach Mark Brown said. “She had the game of her life out there, and made some of the best catches I’ve seen from her.”
Salangsang and Pingree, threw nearly identical games. Each allowed three hits, five strikeouts, and one walk. The deciding factor was that Pingrees bomb.
“If there was a fence out there, who knows,” Brown said. “We had two outs, not to take anything away from them, but who knows?”
SLV finished their regular season with eight straight wins going into the playoffs and beat No. 8 Terra Nova (Pacifica) 2-1 in the playoffs. They finished with an overall record of 17-12, earning a share of the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League title.
“The kids just learned to believe in themselves this season,” Brown said. “They worked through their issues as a team and stopped looking to the scoreboard for assurances. They started seeing the victories in little things that really opened their eyes.”
Santa Catalina is currently 22-1, and plays Notre Dame of Belmonte for the Central Coast Section championships on May 28.