Roseville nips Del Campo for FVL co-championship

With a 4-3 win over Del Campo on Tuesday, Roseville's girls softball team earned a share of the Foothill Valley League championship with the Cougars. Both teams beat the other on their home field and both teams ended the league season with a 9-3 record. Since the Tigers have scored more runs in league play, they will be the league's No. 1 seed in the postseason. Tuesday's game was a battle to the end. Neither team scored until Roseville put up four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Kayla Robles led off the inning with a single and with one out Alyssa West drew a walk to put two runners on. McKenna Patterson then hit a bunt single to load the bases, but she got lucky. It was not a good bunt, as it went high in the air, but just over the head of a hard-charging pitcher before falling safely to the ground in front of the second baseman. Carly Currie-Silhanek then hit a ground ball to the shortstop, who threw high to first, allowing West to score from second for a 2-0 lead, as Robles scored on the hit before West. Makena Kelly then flew out to right field for the second out, but another Del Campo error on the throw to second base allowed Patterson to score to make it 3-0. The Tigers' final run scored on a base hit by pitcher Isabella Senini. The top of the seventh was hardly academic, as Senini walked the leadoff hitter, always a no-no, before striking the next two batters out. Senini, however, then walked the bases full before an error scored one run and two more came in to score on a base hit from Del Campo's Kinsley Imm. With the game-tying run on second and the go-ahead run on first, Senini got the next batter to ground out to first baseman Patterson to end the game. It was a great win for Senini, as she battled with runners on base in the last four innings, yet got out of jams in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings without allowing a run, despite giving up two hits and three walks. "It was a win, starting with what happened before the game," Roseville coach Sarah O'Dea said. "We had a huge issue with our tarp and getting the field prepared. A bunch of these girls were out here at 11 a.m. working on the field. They wanted this game before it even started and then from the time they stepped on the field." The Tigers are looking forward to the playoffs, which start next week. "If we bring the same energy we had today we can go far," O'Dea said.