College of San Mateo headed to 10th straight softball state championship tournament after sweeping Ohlone

3C2A Softball Regional Brackets:
NorCal: Regional l Super Regionals 
SoCal: Play-in and Regional l Super Regionals 

SAN MATEO - College of San Mateo is headed to a believed record tenth consecutive 3C2A state softball finals tournament May 16-19 at West Valley College in Saratoga.

The Bulldogs (38-5) rolled past longtime rival Ohlone College, 8-1 and 8-0 (6 innings), in the Mother's Day weekend Super Regional tournament at their home Tom Martinez softball complex.

This will be the first time in CSM's NorCal leading state run that the state finals are at a local area field. San Mateo won the 2022 state title. San Mateo, with the NorCal No. 2 seed, will face SoCal No. 3 Palomar College (39-4) in Thursday's 11 a.m. state opener at West Valley.

"We had great pitching and defense over the two days," said CSM coach Nicole Quigley-Borg after Saturday's 10th straight NorCal Region finals triumph. "And we had an inside the park home run by Ariana Montiel."

The rare inside smash to the right field corner highlighted a 6-run sixth inning that ended the regional tourney on the 8-run mercy rule margin. With Montiel's blast also bringing home Michelle Hara, who had singled, the Bulldogs led 6-0. They needed just two more scores for the "mercy" rule margin. A bases-loaded double by all-state Megan Barstad, subsequently, ended it - bringing home Emma Kinder and Ari Williams, who had singled and walked, respectively. Ohlone finished 21-20.

All-state pitcher Kennedie Margorian went the distance on a 3-hitter to record her 16th win, fanning seven and walking just one.

Margorian lowered her minimal E.R.A. to 1.56, number 15 in the state. CSM already has the state E.R.A. leader in Nohemi Livingston (0.77) and No. 4 Siona Halwani (1.14) on a state-pacesetting staff E.R.A. of 1.24.

Mercy High grad Montiel went 4-for-6 with 5 RBI in the Super Regional against Ohlone. The sophomore centerfielder (from Daly City) hit for the cycle in the series, with a triple and a single in the first game and an RBI double in addition to the homer in the finale.

Hara, a sophomore rightfielder out of South San Francisco High, went 5-for-6 with two RBI, scoring four runs.

--The four NorCal teams, in their seed order, for state play at West Valley, starting on Thursday: No. 1 San Joaquin Delta (38-4); No. 2 College of San Mateo (37-5); No. 3 Cosumnes River (37-8), and No. 4 Sierra (20-24).

The SoCal qualifiers are No. 1 Fullerton (40-5); No. 2 Cypress (37-7); No. 3 Palomar (39-4), and No. 4 Mt. San Antonio (36-9).

(Fred Baer, College of San Mateo Athletics)