CIF-SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISION 5 SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS – Seventh inning rally comes up short for Cerritos in semifinals

The Cerritos High softball team gathers one last time after falling to West Ranch High 9-7 last Saturday in a CIF-Southern Section Division 5 semifinal game. The Dons finish 17-7 in Michelle Steck’s first season as a high school head coach. PHOTO BY LOREN KOPFF.

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

The Cerritos High softball team has been the comeback queens this past season, not that they want to be put in that position. But trailing West Ranch High by seven runs going to the bottom of the seventh inning was probably asking too much out of the Dons in a CIF-Southern Section Division 5 semifinal game.

Or maybe not, as the third-seeded team scratched and clawed their way and was patient at the plate as it scored five times, loaded the bases and had the winning run at first base. But a tired Gretchen Roen, one of five freshmen West Ranch, had enough to post her third strikeout of the game on her 141^st pitch as the Wildcats escaped with a 9-7 win last Saturday.

Cerritos was a hit or two away from returning to the CIF finals for the first time since 2000, which was four years before West Ranch opened as a high school in the Santa Clarita Valley. This is the third time the school from Stevenson Ranch will play for a divisional championship. The Wildcats fell to Norco High 4-2 in the 2015 Division 1 finals and in 2019, they lost to Crescenta Valley High 3-0 in the Division 3 title game.

“If we had a couple of more outs, maybe we could have put it together,” said Cerritos first-year head coach Michelle Steck. “Our team has had numerous comebacks. Not that you ever want to be put in that position, especially in the semifinals, but I will say that these girls never give up. It’s something that they have done all year long where their backs are against the wall and they will figure out a way to claw themselves back into the game.”

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, Roen walked senior center fielder Anaya Granflor and senior designated player Megan Wallace was safe on a fielder’s choice when the attempt to get Granflor out at second was unsuccessful. Freshman right fielder Demi Lagare singled to left field to load the bases, and in just the first four batters faced in the inning, Roen had already thrown more pitches (23) than in any of the previous six innings.

Junior pitcher Ava Ceron, at the top of the lineup, drove in a run and a groundout from sophomore first baseman made it 9-4. After Lagare scored on a wild pitch and a walk to senior catcher Alianna Calderon, Roen gave up a first-pitch single to senior third baseman Michelle Meza, which brought in Ceron and Calderon.

Roen would hit senior shortstop Katherine Villegas and walk freshman Noelle Martinez to load the bases for the third time in the frame before getting the final out. Of the 11 batters to come to the plate, seven had two strikes on them.

“Gretchen is a freshman pitcher of ours and she battled all year for us like this,” said West Ranch head coach Michael Merrilees, also in his first year. “Her poise doesn’t change; she has no quit in her, period. I know what we’re going to get with her and she’s our warrior child. That’s what we call her.”

After the Wildcats, who started the season 1-5 and were 4-12 at one point, grabbed a 1-0 lead after half an inning, the six-time defending 605 League champions got to Roen in the bottom half of the first. With one out, she walked Corrales and two batters later, walked Meza. Two pitches later, Villegas doubled to the right field gap to make it 2-1. After that, Roen would retire the next 15 batters on 10 groundouts, three fly outs, a pop-up and a strikeout. Calderon’s base hit to right in the sixth ended that stretch, which was followed by a walk to Meza.

“Throughout the whole game, coach Keith [Schwecke] and I were noticing that [Roen] was missing a lot of her spots,” said Steck. “She wasn’t coming out throwing strikes like she was initially. So for us, it was like, okay, let’s take a step back and let’s wait until we have a strike just to get her to throw more pitches.”

“Our youth is what kind of makes us bond from the standpoint of they just don’t think we can be beat at this point,” said Merrilees. “We got hot at a great time; 13 [wins] of our last 15 [games]. It’s a fun group.”

West Ranch, which entered the game having won nine straight games, got to Ceron in the third. With one out, Ava Esparza singled on an 0-2 pitch and Naomi Stoll singled on a one-strike pitch. Both advanced on a groundout and another one-strike pitch, this time to Payton Borland, made it 2-2. After she stole second, Madison Meister reached on an error, allowing two more runs to come across.

Ceron worked a perfect fourth inning on five pitches, but the Wildcats added three more runs in the fifth with the big blows being a one-out single from Meister and a two-out double from Kara Carnes. West Ranch would tattoo Ceron for 11 hits with Isabella Swanson going three for four and Borland and Roen each collecting two hits.

“We changed our approach; we had to stop thinking we could blast every ball over the fence,” said Merrilees. “If you start thinking hard ground ball, you’re going to get your line drives. The middle was open, and we just kept trying to change our approach, don’t chase, shorten up the swings, and don’t try to do too much.

“[Cerritos] is a hard team to beat,” he continued. “It’s one of the better defensive teams I’ve seen, and the defense was playing for how [Ceron] was pitching. This whole left side of the infield…you can’t get it through. [Villegas and Meza] are probably two of the best infielders I’ve seen in my life. We had to start hitting up the middle or get it over their heads.”

Despite getting only five hits, the fewest since an 8-1 loss to Gahr High on Apr. 9, all nine batters in the Cerritos lineup reached base one way or another. The Dons were hoping to mount their biggest comeback win of the season. They trailed Kennedy High 8-2 after one and a half innings on Mar. 17 and bounced back for a 9-8 victory.

On top of that, the team turned things around after losing the first three games of the season, getting outscored 23-2. It wasn’t until Apr. 1 that Cerritos went above .500 for the first time. Since then, only Gahr and West Ranch have been the lone setbacks on the schedule.

This was the second time in the last five seasons Cerritos has played in the semifinals and has advanced to the playoffs 16 straight seasons. Cerritos graduates nine players from a team of 15 but Steck has constantly put Lagare and Martinez in the lineup as freshmen and if they come back, the Dons will have three returning seniors, including Ceron.

“I think the way our season started, I don’t think anyone really anticipated us to be in the semifinals today,” said Steck. “But yeah, I’m so proud of them. This will be something I’ll never forget. Everything that they told me coming in and just the growth…we all mended together as a team.”