Prep softball: Cardinal Newman erupts for big win over Rancho Cotate

The North Bay League-Oak softball race is looking like anyone’s to win.

Cardinal Newman, the preseason favorite, is right back in the mix after taking down league-leading Rancho Cotate 9-2 on Thursday in Rohnert Park.

The Cardinals (13-5, 3-2) broke the game open in the top of the fifth as they sent 12 batters to the plate en route to scoring six runs. When the dust settled it was 9-2, and whatever momentum the Cougars (8-6, 4-2) had coming off a two-run fourth was gone.

The win secures two historic achievements for Newman. It’s the largest margin of the victory the Cardinals have ever had against the Cougars and marks the first time they’ve swept Rancho in the regular season in program history.

“Today they executed in all three phases, and it’s been a minute since we’ve put a complete game together,” Cardinal Newman head coach Bill Vreeland said. The Cardinals had lost three of the prior five games heading into Thursday.

The Cougars, on the other hand, had been the hottest team in the area over the last few weeks as they rattled off six straight wins and took control of the league race. Now, four of the league’s six teams are separated by just one game.

“We were a lot more confident at the plate and we were very aggressive going after strikes, but today it was like the reverse,” Rancho Cotate head coach Tracey Poueu said. “Got some soul-searching to do to figure out what was the difference today in their approach as opposed to the last six games, because that was not the team that we’ve been seeing at the plate the last week and a half.”

Makenna Homan, who went 2-for-4 on the day with three RBIs, had RBI hits in both the third and fifth innings, her second bringing in two runs, to give the Cardinals a 7-2 lead. Callie Howard also had two hits and two RBIs and was stellar in the circle to cool off the Cougars’ bats.

Howard retired the first 10 batters she faced and finished her outing with 11 strikeouts, two hits and two walks in a complete game. She’s now 10-3 on the year with a 2.14 earned run average and has struck out 141 batters with only 36 walks in 100 innings pitched.

“Honestly, it was awesome,” Howard said of the win. “It felt so good out there. Especially when everyone is doing good with hitting and defense, it feels so good for me as a pitcher. I can just pitch freely and know that we’re making the plays and getting the outs we need to, and when we get that amount of runs early on it takes pressure off of everyone’s shoulders. Such a good feeling.”

On the day, the Cardinals had seven players record a hit, including five with two each.

Andrea Mansbery had two hits, including a double, with an RBI, Nicole DiMarco had two hits with an RBI, Ava Walters had two hits and scored a run and Izzie Kunimune doubled with an RBI.

Mansbery, Homan and Gianna Tamayo each had RBI hits to put Newman ahead 3-0 early on before Rancho’s Izabella Harumi cut the deficit to 3-2 with a two-run, two-out single in the fourth. The rally for the Cougars, however, was short-lived, as the Cardinals loaded the bases with no outs to began their big fifth-inning barrage.

The Cougars now fall into a two-way tie with Maria Carrillo for second place in the league standings, while the Cardinals remain a half-game back of the two in third. Windsor now sits alone atop the standings at 4-1, but there’s a long way to go until a winner is crowned.

“We’re all very evenly competitive across the board,” Poueu said. “… It’s really up in the air and it could come down to the NBL tournament more so this year than I think ever before.”

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @JustGusPD.