El Modena defeats Glendora, 12-4, for Division II title
HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL
The game at Barber Park in Irvine lasted almost three hours and featured 21 hits, seven errors and 19 runners left on base.
Orange El Modena started and ended with a bang, and when the Vanguards were done, they had a Southern Section-Toyota championship and a share of a section record.
El Modena scored five runs in the first inning, added three more in the seventh, and finished with a 12-4 victory Friday over Glendora to win the Division II softball title.
The game at Barber Park in Irvine lasted almost three hours and featured 21 hits, seven errors and 19 runners left on base.
El Modena (25-8-2) tied the scoring record set by Santa Maria St. Joseph in its 12-2 victory over Ontario Christian in the 1982 Division 1-A title game.
The record for total runs in a championship game is 20, which might have been challenged if Glendora (20-10) could have mustered a big hit. It couldn't. It loaded the bases in the first and third innings but stranded 11 runners in all.
It's the first title in three appearances for El Modena, which lost in 2001 and 2002. It was the first championship game appearance for Glendora, which upset second-seeded Etiwanda in the second round and was a heavy underdog after successive victories over Vista Murrieta and Garden Grove Pacifica. The Tartans committed five errors Friday night.
The offensive carnage could have been much worse.
El Modena stranded eight runners, had another thrown out at home, and another picked off trying to steal third with a 7-0 lead.
"I never felt, until the end, the game was in the bag," said El Modena Coach Steve Harrington, whose team beat top-seeded La Palma Kennedy with an eighth-inning walk-off home run in a Tuesday semifinal. "They're scrappy, and I'm very fortunate to have a team that has a lot of fight in it."
El Modena put it in the bag in the seventh when it scored thee runs, two on Kylie Wagner's single off the first baseman, another on Emily McEwen's fourth hit.
Wagner (20-3), the winning pitcher, had four RBIs including her two-run homer in the first inning. McEwen, who followed Wagner's line-drive home run to right field with a towering shot to left field, was four for five with three RBIs.
El Modena ended the season winning 10 of its last 11. The only blip was a tie with Valencia, the Division I finalist that plays Simi Valley for the title at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Glendora should have better days ahead. Its key players are underclassmen, and it started only three seniors in the championship, one more than its usual lineup.
