Selma cruises past Dos Palos into Valley Championship softball game

Playing on a big stage in front of a large crowd unnerved a young Dos Palos High School softball team.

The nerves were on display from the start as freshman pitcher Janessa Jasso walked the first three Selma hitters. All three scored without the top-seeded Bears getting a hit.

Selma used four stolen bases, two wild pitches and a passed ball to make its way around the bases, and the Bears (24-4) cruised to a 10-2 win in the Central Section Division IV semifinals Wednesday afternoon at Duran Diamond.

Selma will try to win its first Valley Championship since 2001 against No. 2 seed Mission Oak on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at Margie Wright Diamond at Fresno State.

The Broncos (20-5-1), who had one senior on the roster, can use Wednesday’s game as a learning experience.

“That’s the first time we’ve played like this,” Dos Palos coach Irene Barrantes said. “Our pitcher is 14 years old, and I think it showed. Our whole infield is sophomores, except our first baseman, who is a junior. I think our youth hurt us.”

Savannah Pena led off the bottom of the first with a walk for Selma and stole second and third. She scored on a wild pitch.

Dom Trevino walked, advanced to second and third on wild pitches and scored on a passed ball.

Ally Trevino walked, stole second, advanced to third on a passed ball and scored on an error.

“I know I was really nervous,” said Dos Palos sophomore shortstop Teya Vincent, who went 1 for 3. “We’re really young, and we didn’t know what to expect. None of us have been in the third round of the playoffs. We really didn’t settle down until the very late innings.”

Selma had a big lead by then.

Alley Trevino led off the third with a home run over the left-field wall to extend the lead to 4-0. Dom Trevino delivered a run-scoring triple in the fourth to stretch the lead to 5-0.

In the fifth, Jasso hit Selma’s Aly Cerra and Ariel Avalos back-to-back, and both scored without the Bears getting a hit to extend the lead to 7-0.

Four walks and two hit batters came around to score six of Selma’s first seven runs.

“I just told (Jasso) to relax,” Barrantes said. “I told her she has the defense behind her. She’ll be OK. She forgot her face mask in her other bag, and it kind of just started from there.”

Jasso struck out eight and limited the Bears to four hits.

The Broncos finally broke through against Selma pitcher Hailey Garcia in the sixth. Grace Schofield led off with a single up the middle and Eryka Rodriguez tomahawked a pitch at eye level to deep center for a double.

Payton Paz then reached on an error that plated Schofield and Rodriguez to cut the Selma lead to 7-2. The Broncos had a chance to pull closer, but Garcia pitched out of a jam and stranded two runners in scoring position.

“Their pitcher was really good at hitting her spots, and we didn’t have an answer for it,” Vincent said. “We weren’t swinging at the pitches we needed to swing at, and we didn’t get the hits when we needed.”

Dom Trevino put away the game for Selma in the sixth when she singled in two runs, and Trevino never stopped running when the ball got past an outfielder and rolled to the fence to give the Bears a 10-2 lead. Dom Trevino had two hits and three RBIs.

It wasn’t long after the final out that Barrantes was already thinking about next season with eight starters returning.

“This is huge for us,” Barrantes said. “Just to get into this position. We had six underclassmen on the team and we got this far. We’ll be fine. This will be a good learning experience for them. I’m going to toughen our schedule to get us ready for this earlier next year.”

This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 8:42 PM with the headline "Selma cruises past Dos Palos into Valley Championship softball game."