PREP SOFTBALL ROUNDUP : Yorke Loses Batting Title Battle, but Helps Marina Win the War

Robyn Yorke got a chance to prove her point--that a batting title was secondary to a league championship.

Yorke went hitless Thursday, but still made a contribution to third-ranked Marina’s 2-0 victory over seventh-ranked Ocean View (19-6, 11-3), providing the Vikings (21-3, 13-1) with the Sunset League title. Ocean View, the host team, dropped into a second-place tie with Fountain Valley.

The game included personal battles between the county’s best hitters, and two of the county’s best pitchers--both of whom are sophomores.

Yorke entered the game with a .618 batting average, but an 0-for-2 performance dropped her to .603. Ocean View’s Lisa Dacquisto went two for three and improved from .611 to a county-best .613.

But it was Yorke, with the league title, who was happiest.

She walked to lead off the fourth inning--the first baserunner allowed by Kathy Ponce--took second on Becky Tackett’s bunt, third on Faith Fuata’s single to left, and scored when cleanup batter Marcy Crouch laid down a squeeze bunt in front of the plate.

Though Ponce (13-2) was perfect through nine batters--including six strikeouts--Crouch (12-2) upstaged her counterpart. She retired 17 of 18 batters after Dacquisto singled to open the game and finished with a four-hitter.

Ponce allowed only three hits, but surrendered consecutive hits in the seventh: Crouch singled and Lynette Velasquez tripled.

“I was really scared at the beginning,” Marina Coach Shelly Luth said. “We weren’t making contact and I was thinking, ‘uh oh.’ ”

But Yorke had an answer for her coach: “Once we get a runner on, everybody calms down and does their job.”