GRANADA HILLS — The Granada Hills Charter softball team is headed back to the CIF LA City Open Division championship game after a 19-0 rout of visiting Venice in the semifinals Wednesday.
It will be the Highlanders’ third straight trip to the Open Division final. They’ll face Carson in the championship game Saturday at 3 p.m. at Cal State Northridge.
Carson defeated Granada Hills in extra innings in the past two Open finals.
The Highlanders scored six runs in the first inning, four in the second and nine in the third Wednesday and finished the game with 16 hits to the Gondoliers’ one. The game was stopped after five innings because of the mercy rule.
Senior pitcher Addison Moorman was dominant for Granada Hills. She struck out nine.
“It’s a great team win,” Moorman said. “This is our third championship we’re going into in a row, so we’re experienced and we know what to expect. We’re hot right now, so I’m really excited to see how Saturday goes.”
In the bottom of the first, junior Elysse Diaz drove in the first run for Granada Hills with a hit to center field that brought in senior Jocelyn Jimenez.
The Highlanders loaded the bases and senior Giselle Merida brought in a run with a bunt. After Venice recorded two outs, Highlanders senior Jasmine Soriano hit a double into left field to increase the lead to 4-0. Junior Victoria Rubio followed with a single to bring in two runners for a 6-0 score.
The Highlanders continued to build their lead in the second inning. Another bunt from senior Samantha Esparza brough in a run and raised the score to 7-0. Senior Anabella Ramirez followed with a single to left field to bring in another run. Junior Zoe Justman hit a triple into center field to bring in Ramirez.
Soriano would strike again with another single sent into right field to bring in Justman to raise the score to 10-0 at the end of the second inning.
“I think our captains, our leaders — Lainey Brown, Zoe Justman and Addi — have kept the team focused,” Granada Hills coach Ivan Garcia said. “A lot of the credit goes to them making sure that no one slacks, everyone’s on it, everyone’s doing this. They got a job to do and they want to make sure that it gets done.”
The Highlanders continued to pile up the hits and runs in the third inning. Esparza drove in a run with a single, Justman drove in a run with a double, Brown drove in two runs with a single and Diaz’s triple to center raised the Highlanders’ lead to 18-0. Esparza’s RBI single into center field made it 19-0.
“It didn’t go the way we planned, or the way we had hoped, or the way we had anticipated it to go,” Venice head coach Eddie Soto said. “It’s one of those games where things just didn’t go our way and just compounded and put us back in our heels a little bit and we weren’t able to recover.”
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