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High School: Michelle Carew Classic Semi’s Set for Saturday Led By #1 Norco

Sarah Willis of Norco is pumped as her Cougars are two games away from winning the Michelle Carew Classic. Photo: Steven Doi/Norco Softball.

And then there were four.

The Gold Bracket semi-finals were set Friday night in the Michelle Carew Classic as Norco and Los Alamitos will face off Saturday at 1 pm PST as will Gahr and Orange Lutheran.

The winners of those matchups will play Saturday at 7 pm for the title, which was won last year by Cathedral Catholic over Orange Lutheran.

Here are rundowns on how the quartet still standing made it to Saturday’s semis in the Gold Bracket…

*****

Norco 8, Pacifica 3

Norco (21-0), ranked #1 in the Extra Elite Eighty High School Rankings for the entire season topped #21 Pacifica 8-3 in a game that was much closer than the score indicated for most of the contest.

Norco will face #29 Los Alamitos (14-4) for the second time this year—the two traditional So Cal powers met in the Tournament of Champions (Bullhead City, Arizona) on March 9 in a game that was won by the Cougars as Extra Inning Softball All-American Paige Smith had a monster game with two home runs and five RBIs.

If Orange Lutheran would happen to defeat Gahr and make it to the title game, it would be another repeat matchup for the Cougars as Norco beat the Lancers 6-2 on February 22 at the So Cal’s Best tournament in Chino Hills.

Paige Smith

In Friday’s quarter-finals, Norco got on the board first when sr. catcher Kinzie Hansen hit a sac fly in the third inning.

After Pacifica tied it in the bottom of the 3rd, the Cougars went ahead 2-1 in the 4th inning as talented freshman outfielder Abby Dayton had an RBI single and then knocked in another run in the 6th to push the lead to 3-1.

Norco would put on the board five unanswered runs thanks to RBI singles by Smith, jr. middle infielder Kyleigh Sands and sr. first baseman Megan Forbes to make the score 8-1 in the bottom of the 6th inning before Pacifica would tack on two runs to make the final score 8-3.

Pitcher Sarah Willis, the junior committed to Washington, had eight strikeouts for Norco.

Los Alamitos 5, Canyon 1

Los Alamitos scored four runs in the 5th inning to break a 1-1 tie as jr. infielder Jamie Sellers hit a two-run single with the bases loaded for the decisive blow for the Griffins, knocking in jr. infielder Ali Belarde, a Utah commit, and sr. outfielder Samantha Denehy.

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