High school roundup: Benicia celebrates NCS Division II softball title
Benicia scored three runs in the first inning, and that was plenty for pitcher Braxton Brown as the second-seeded Panthers defeated fifth-seeded Marin Catholic 6-1 on Friday in the North Coast Section Division II softball final.
Brown homered, Lorenzza Marcacci knocked in two runs and Kyra Mason doubled twice to lead Benicia’s attack.
Marin Catholic scored in the fourth to cut the margin to 3-1.
Benicia answered with a run in the bottom half of the frame and single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to put the score out of reach as it improved to 22-6.
The section title was Benicia’s fifth. The Panthers won an NCS crown in 2000 and Sac-Joaquin Section championships in 2014, 2017 and 2018 before moving back to the NCS.
The victory secures Benicia’s spot in next week’s inaugural California Interscholastic Federation NorCal regionals.
Marin Catholic, which upset top seed Livermore in the semifinals, fell to 22-4.
Baseball
NCS Division V final
Top-seeded Berean Christian’s quest for its first NCS championship fell short in heartbreaking fashion as third-seeded Branson scored all of its runs in the sixth inning to capture the Division V title with a 3-1 victory at Diablo Valley College.
Josh Ting’s RBI broke a scoreless tie in the home half of the fifth to give Berean Christian a 1-0 lead.
Branson immediately answered to clinch its spot in the regionals.
As a No. 1 seed, Berean Christian also will likely be among the NCS’s nine teams across all divisions to advance.
Ting and Noah Peterson each had two hits for Berean Christian on Friday.
CCS Division III final
Burlingame and Monterey were scoreless in the fifth inning of their Central Coast Section Division III championship game at Excite Ballpark in San Jose.
Monterey then erupted for five runs in the inning and coasted to a 7-0 victory that clinched a spot for the Toreadores in the NorCal regionals.
Burlingame finished 18-12.
Charlie Dohemann, Lou Martineau, Charlie Happ and Ryan Kall accounted for Burlingame’s four hits.
Monterey, which beat top seed Los Gatos in the semifinals, improved to 17-13.