July 20, 2024
BY BOB JUDSON
OGDEN, UT — Emma Placencia isn’t suiting up the Quakes 14U Placencia (Sunnyvale, CA) softball team just because her dad is the coach.
Turns out Placencia is a pretty darn good clutch hitter for a 13-year-old.
Placencia lined a two-out, bases loaded single to right field in the bottom of the sixth inning to tie a Triple Crown 14u World Series game against Crossfire Fastpitch (Meridian, ID), then Hannah Woo singled in what proved to be the winning run in the next at bat.
Quakes twice came back from two-run deficits and advanced in the tournament with a scintillating 5-4 victory on Friday at Fourth Street Park.
“Well, I was really nervous but I didn’t want to mess anything up so I thought to myself just a nice, easy hard hit somewhere,” Placencia said. “In the gaps. I wasn’t trying to think of anything too too big because it would have gone to my head.”
Placencia bats in the ninth hole in the order, so up came Woo in the leadoff spot with runners on the corners. Woo drove in Lily Whiting from third, giving the Quakes the 5-4 lead they held onto in the seventh inning.
“I was also quite nervous, but my team’s there to give me the mental strength to bat them in,” Woo said.
Crossfire took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning on double by Taryn Peterman and an inside-the-park home run by Grace Groulx with two out. Quakes countered with two runs in the bottom half when Woo singled and Sabrina Neal reached on an error, and both came around to score to tie it at 2-2.
“I knew my team could do it. I knew we could come back; we’ve done it before,” starting pitcher Mackenzie Smith said. “We started scoring runs, which helped. We were back in the game and then we had pretty much clean defense the rest of the game.”
Lauren Colson tripled to lead off the second for Crossfire and scored on a groundout by Kira Anderson for a 3-2 edge. The lead grew to 4-2 when Anderson lofted a sacrifice fly to left field in the fourth inning.
Olivia Rogers was sailing along, scattering four hits for Crosssfire through five innings. That is notable, because even with a time limit, the teams still got in all seven innings.
“I thought it was super fun,” Smith said.
Smith sent Crossfire down in order in the sixth, setting up the fateful bottom half, which didn’t start out as planned for the Quakes.
“We were saying we really need this; we got this far and we have to work together and cheer each other up,” Placencia said. “We just needed to get people on base and get some hits.”
With two down and nobody on base, Iya Sanchez started the rally for the Quakes with a single. Smith followed with a single and Whiting was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Placencia and Woo’s heroics.
“We were playing for the team; we’re playing as a team,” Woo said. “That sort of team mentality keeps all of us going.”
But there was still time remaining so Crossfire had one more chance to get even in the top of the seventh. Smith had spaced six hits and two strikeouts over the six previous innings and the 15-year-old took things upon herself to close the game out when she struck out the side for the complete-game victory.
“I knew it was the last inning. I knew we couldn’t let them get on base,” Smith said. “I was pitching the best pitches I could. I gave it my all with the best of my energy. Tried to get strikeouts or soft ground balls.”
Mission accomplished.
