Napa Valley High School Softball: Vintage rallies for 9-1 win over American Canyon (2024)

You can split a seven-inning softball game into halves, but Vintage High did dominate the last 3 1/3 frames in coming back to defeat American Canyon, 9-1, on Tuesday in Napa.

The Crushers (8-2-1, 4-0 VVAL) came back from a 1-0 first-inning deficit to win the showdown between the Vine Valley Athletic League’s first-place teams, a week after doing the same in a 4-3 win over defending league champion Casa Grande.

“We try not to make that a habit,” Vintage head coach Megan Lopez said. “But I have so much confidence in these girls and their ability to put the ball in play and play hard and run the bases well. Hits are contagious, and they’re proving that.”

The Crushers trailed 1-0 after pitcher Alexandria Yra bashed a solo home run in the first inning for the Wolves (10-3, 4-1 VVAL) and held Vintage’s dangerous lineup hitless for 3 2/3 innings. The senior even got out of a one-out, two-baserunner jam in the second after giving up back-to-back walks.

But in the bottom of the fourth, after American Canyon shortstop Deja Montgomery made her second tough putout of the game and Angelika Annal got another one from second base, Vintage freshman Malina Viruet smoked a ground ball into the left-side hole. Montgomery got a piece of it but couldn’t scoop it up as Viruet broke up Yra’s no-hitter with an infield single.

Mia Griffith kept the two-out rally going by drawing a full-count walk, and then scored the go-ahead run on Brianna Allen’s two-run double off the fence in left-center field. An error on a grounder up the middle allowed Allen to score for a 3-1 lead.

Vintage pitcher Angie Rubalcava, who had also given up a fourth-inning double to Yra and walks to Jayden de los Santos and Aalayah Ramos but stranded Yra at third base, allowed only one baserunner the rest of the game. That was Montgomery, when the sophom*ore leadoff batter beat out a bunt-single in the fifth and stole second. But she was left there when Rubalcava caught a low bullet off the bat of Yra for the third out.

“My goal is to give up no runs, but after (Yra’s homer), I refreshed and I was like ‘they’re not gonna get me next time.’ I kept them (guessing),” Rubalcava said. “My team has my back when I’m not having my best day, and I know that). It’s important for me to trust my defense and I know they just have my back because it makes me have more of an open mindset and know that if they hit it to someone, they’re going to get it.”

After Yra stranded two Vintage runners in the fifth, Devin Viruet made the play of the day at third for the Crushers to open the sixth. Cleanup hitter Jaida Fulcher drilled a high-bouncer to Viruet’s left that she dove to stop before getting the throw to her sister at first base just in time.

“That was crazy,” Rubalcava said.

It would be the first of first of six straight outs by the Vintage defense to end the game.

“Our defense is unmatched,” Lopez said. “They are playing incredible defense. I’m just proud of them in the work that they put in here every single day.”

Rubalcava couldn’t say if it was necessarily the Crushers’ best defensive outing yet.

“Honestly, I don’t know if there’s been a best defensive game,” said junior said, “because I feel like all our games have been really good defensively and I think we’ve been improving every game.”

Rubalcava helped her cause with a two-run double over the right fielder’s head in the bottom of the sixth. Griffith had led off by getting hit by a pitch. Allen then laid down a bunt so perfect it plopped a few feet in front of the plate like a chunk of wet clay, causing some defensive confusion that helped Griffith get to third and Allen to second before scoring.

“We were struggling for a bit, so it felt good to get that hit,” Rubalcava said.

Allen and Rubalcava got their multiple-RBI hits in the No. 7 and No. 8 spots in the batting order, respectively.

“It’s huge when you are solid 1 through 9 and you can bring people off the bench and see them produce as well,” Lopez said. “It’s pretty incredible.”

After a strikeout and groundout, Audrey Manley floated a base hit into shallow left field to drive in Rubalcava for a 6-1 lead. A seemingly routine fly ball to the outfield was then apparently lost in the sun to put a second duck on the pond for cleanup hitter Cienna Alvarez, who promptly crushed a three-run homer over the fence in left.

It’s Vintage’s sixth straight win over American Canyon, going back to their split in 2021.

“We have a really special group of girls that have played together for a really long time and I can look to each and every one of them and find a leadership quality,” Lopez said. “It’s really special.”

It was tough to predict which of the teams would win the clash because their seasons had been so similar to that point. American Canyon had also beaten Casa Grande by a run, 5-4, on March 21 by coming back from a one-run deficit in the first inning. Both teams had also defeated Napa High and Justin-Siena by similar margins. Neither had faced third-place Petaluma yet, either, though Vintage was to visit the Trojans (3-1 VVAL) on Wednesday.

“I was nervous because they beat Casa, we beat Casa, but every year that I’ve been here we’ve been we’ve always like dominated,” Rubalcava said. “I came in confident. I knew that we were going to win.”

Although American Canyon’s two errors directly or indirectly led to four Vintage runs, head coach Roger Harris didn’t think they were the reason the Wolves lost as much as Vintage having more timely hits.

“I think with us having bases loaded one inning and two runners on in another inning, we didn’t get the timely hits and we let them stay around. If you don’t put them away, good teams will make you pay for that,” he said. “But I’m very proud of Alexandria for the way that she pitched and the two hits she had.

“Like I told them in the (postgame) circle, they can’t let this game define their season. They had a nine-game winning streak going into today’s game and they need to respond. It doesn’t get any easier on Friday. We’ve got Napa (at home that day) to start the second round of league, and we still haven’t played (either game against) Petaluma yet.

“The league is rising. All the teams are competitive. We’re coming off a year in which we lost five games in league and were fourth, even though we were the only one to beat Casa (in the league opener).”

Harris, who is assisted by Kelsee Romero and Jaime Ramirez, has been at the Wolves’ helm since their first season in 2012. American Canyon’s only meetings with teams from the city of Napa before joining them in the VVAL in 2018 were 12-0 and 18-2 losses to Napa High in 2012 and 2013, and 13-1 to Vintage in 2016.

“We were in the Solano County Athletic League and we would play the Napa teams in the preseason and they were always good. Now we’re facing them in league and they’re still competing. Ron (Walston, Napa High head coach) has a very good program over there, and it’s the same thing with Megan here. They’ve always been the teams to beat in this area.”

Five of American Canyon’s seniors have been on the varsity for four years, since unofficially winning league as freshmen in 2021, and just might be playing Vintage for an official VVAL crown at home on May 1.

If not this year, then maybe in the next two years. The Wolves’ JV team beat Vintage 6-0 on Tuesday to improve to 3-0 in the VVAL and 7-1 overall.