With the bases loaded and her team down by one run in the seventh inning, JuJu Brower stood in the batter’s box for El Modena in a Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinal playoff game Wednesday. Her team was trying to rally against one of the hottest softball teams, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.
Brower hadn’t been fully cleared by her doctors to play catcher because of a torn ACL injury in August suffered while playing flag football. She had been cleared to hit, something she was doing for four weeks. Then came her most important at bat of the season. She delivered a two-run single up the middle to help El Modena come away with a 6-4 victory and advance to Saturday’s semifinals against Temescal Canyon.
“It means a lot,” Brower said of her hit and the comeback. She had to go through months of rehab just to get back on the field, from stretching to leg exercises.
El Modena started the game with consecutive home runs by Kaitlyn Galasso and Kylie Tafua. After that, Notre Dame pitcher Aliyah Garcia threw five consecutive scoreless innings to help the Knights take a 4-2 lead going into the seventh. Charley Tapia had a home run and triple.
But the fifth inning was the key moment for the Knights. They had the bases loaded and none out against No. 2 pitcher Ashley Driskill. She got a 1-2-3 double play, then a fly out to end the threat.
Then El Modena scored four runs in the top of the seventh to take the lead and eliminate the Knights, Monica Garcia had an RBI single to support Brower’s hit. Notre Dame had been hitting home runs in bunches during playoff wins over Orange Lutheran and El Segundo.
El Modena coach Bobby Calderon praised Brower. for her dedication to make it back to the field this season. “For her to come through at that moment shows how much she believes in our team,” he said.
Norco 9, Chino Hills 1: Ashley Duran had three hits for the top-seeded Cougars, who will play Ayala on Saturday in the other Division 1 semifinal.
JSerra 7, Palos Verdes 1: Melia Munoz had a two-run home run and Annabel Raftery had four hits to lead JSerra in Division 2. JSerra will play Great Oak in the semifinals.
Santa Margarita 2, Ganesha 1: Sawyer Denser pitched the Eagles into the Division 2 semifinals. She struck out eight. Sofia Zavarella had a solo home run. Santa Margarita will play Los Alamitos, a 7-1 winner over La Serna.
Baseball
Carson 4, Taft 2: Xavier Allen hit a walk-off two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to enable the Colts to advance to Saturday’s 10 a.m. City Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium.
