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By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
La Mirada High has always had a solid softball program worthy enough to play for a CIF-Southern Section championship. But recently, the Matadores have been snakebitten in the Division 1 playoffs, falling in the second round twice and the first round twice since 2021 before advancing to the quarterfinals last season.
But last Saturday’s 5-1 road win over La Habra High assured the fourth-seeded Matadores a chance to win the school’s second softball title. That night will come on Friday when La Mirada (26-4) will face JSerra Catholic High (24-8) in the championship game at Deanna Manning Stadium in Irvine.
“They’re not demons; they’re just learning experiences,” said La Mirada head coach Brent Tuttle of the recent playoff outcomes. “Like I was just saying to these kids, everybody at the beginning of the year…said we were rebuilding, and [we] weren’t going to be who we were. But these kids…we started four freshmen and they’re tough. They’re not fazed, and it’s just about this time of the year, they’re playing together and they’re inspired.
“It wasn’t our best game hitting, but they did what they had to do and gritted it out,” he continued. “When you have [junior pitcher] Alison [Ortega] in the circle doing what she did…the whole scouting report was don’t pitch to the leadoff [batter]. But we went after her Alison paints corners, and she did a really good job.”
After a 10-0 loss to Los Alamitos High in the second game of the season on Feb. 21, the Matadores won their next eight games by a combined score of 70-4, then won nine straight games before Warren High snapped that streak on Apr. 14 with a 5-1 victory. La Mirada enters the title game having won eight of its last nine contests, falling to Gahr High 9-7 on May 5. Despite the setbacks to Gahr and Warren, the Matadores still won the Gateway League, once again showing that it’s one of the toughest leagues in the Southland.
Ortega has been the heart and soul in the circle, posting a 20-2 mark with a 1.05 earned run average. She has struck out 161 batters in over 139 innings and has recorded seven shutouts in 22 starts. With numbers like that, the Matadores don’t need much offensive help, but it doesn’t hurt that the team is batting .361 and has a trio of starters batting well over .400.
Junior catcher Riley Hilliard leads the team with a .568 batting average with 46 hits, 33 runs batted in, 14 doubles and 10 home runs while her older sister by 30 seconds, Reese Hilliard, the team’s shortstop, is batting .567 with 55 hits, 39 runs, 38 RBI, 13 doubles and seven home runs. After that, freshman left fielder Alanna Adams, in the leadoff spot, is batting .435 with 40 hits, 14 RBI and five triples.
Three other starters are batting over .300 while two consistent starters are hitting at least .253 and eight players have combined to smack 37 home runs.
La Mirada is 1-5 in the championship game, knocking off Quartz Hill High 2-0 to claim the 1991 3-A title under the tutelage of former head coach Krystal Meier. Three years before that, the Matadores fell to Kennedy High 1-0 in the 3-A championship game. Most recently, La Mirada lost consecutive Division III championship games to Pacifica High in 2003 (9-3) and the next season, 4-1. La Mirada was also on the south end of a 5-1 decision to Camarillo High in the 2011 Division 2 title game.
“I just play one game at a time,” said Reese Hilliard after the quarterfinal win against Etiwanda High on May 21. “We had to worry about Etiwanda before we worry about La Habra. I think that’s what we have to do in order to be successful.”
JSerra, which was established as a high school in 2003 and first played softball in 2005, knocked off the division’s number two team and perennial powerhouse Norco High 2-0 in the semifinals to reach the program’s second straight championship game. The Lions batted .272 as a team and are led by sophomore Annabel Raftery (.429, 45 hits, 21 RBI, 19 runs, 15 doubles and 12 home runs) and senior Zena Edwards (.395, 34 hits, 23 RBI, 22 runs, seven home runs and six doubles). One other player has topped the .300 mark, and that is freshman Magenta De Arte, who has a .330 average with 31 hits, 21 RBI, 11 doubles and a pair of home runs.
Senior Liliana Escobar is the ace in the circle as she brings a 17-5 record into the final game of the season with a 1.25 ERA and 252 strikeouts in 146 innings.
La Mirada is 4-3 against JSerra since 2008 and last played the Lions on Mar. 7 in the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions in Bullhead City, AZ. There, the second place team from the Trinity League came away with a 5-2 victory, handing Ortega her first loss of the season. The Hilliard sisters each had a pair of hits with Riley Hilliard driving in both runs. The Lions scored three runs in the bottom the first inning and added solo tallies in the third and fourth before the Matadores scored their two runs in the sixth. Also in that game, Escobar and pitcher Abby Ford each struck out eight batters and yielded two hits.
The Hilliard sisters, Ortega and senior Bettie Mae Acevedo are the only La Mirada players to have faced JSerra before this season. On Feb. 10, 2024, Reese Hilliard went two for three, scored a run, walked once and had a double and Ortega faced 10 batters in an inning, allowing one hit and throwing 10 pitches in a 7-1 victory.
Later that season, in a Division 1 first round home game, the Matadores had a 2-0 advantage heading into the top of the seventh before the Lions scored three runs to eliminate the Matadores from the postseason. The Hilliard sisters each went one for four, accounting for half the hits La Mirada got.
BASEBALL
Norwalk High’s bid to reach the CIF-SS finals ended this past Tuesday with a 3-0 loss to South El Monte High in the Division 7 semifinals. The Lancers, who finished in third place in the Mid-Cities League and were the second-ranked team in the division, wrap up the 2026 campaign at 18-8. Since 2023, the Lancers have been bounced out of the playoffs in the quarterfinals twice and the semifinals once while compiling a record of 61-39. Before 2023, it took the program nine seasons to win 65 games.
TRACK AND FIELD
A trio of area athletes, all competing in field events, saw their seasons come to an end in the Masters Meet last Saturday at Moorpark High. In the girls pole vault, Valley Christian High junior Celia Polk had a mark of 10’2”, which was five inches short of her qualifying mark from the previous week.
In the shot put, V.C. junior Micah Carter threw for a distance of 42’ 6 ½” while in the discus, La Mirada senior Daniel Morales had a distance of 169’ 3”, which was nearly four feet farther than the mark he had the previous week.
SWIMMING
At the CIF Swimming and Diving state championships at Clovis West High on May 16, senior Kayla Han of La Mirada and senior Andrew Vet and junior Anthony Dornoff of Cerritos High helped their respective schools finish within the top quarter of all the state schools. Han finished in third place in the 200-yard IM with a time of 1:58.44 and won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:45.90, picking up 40 points as the Matadores finished in 23rd place out of 97 schools.
In the boys 200-yard IM, junior Anthony Dornoff finished in third place with a time of 1:47.10 while senior Andrew Vet claimed 10th place with a time of 1:50.32. Dornoff also came in seventh place in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:26.05 as the Dons picked up 42 points, good for 19th place out of 108 schools.
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