Bates, Nunes help Ceres softball upset Oakdale in D-III playoffs

Callie Nunes and Nicole Bates sifted through the crowd of well-wishers until they found each other near the gate in right field.

The Ceres High School softball stars embraced, each thanking the other for their heroics.

With Nunes’ electric arm and Bates’ sweet swing, the third-seeded Bulldogs shook up the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III playoff bracket with a 5-3 upset of No. 2 Oakdale on Monday evening at Arnaiz Stadium.

Nunes tied her season high with 17 strikeouts, taming one of the most explosive lineups in Northern California. Oakdale entered the game with 33 home runs and hit two more in defeat.

“She is freaking amazing,” Bates said of Nunes. “Her ball was moving still. She had to be tired, but she still came out and performed.”

Bates provided the tiebreaking run in the seventh inning. The Washington-bound shortstop crushed her second homer of the game into the cluster of trees in center field to make it 4-3. MacKenzie Veuve drove in an insurance run, bouncing a single over third baseman Grace Green.

“I think (Bates) broke out of her shell a little bit because she had been struggling with the bat,” Ceres coach Angela Durossette said. “She’s always good, but those were her first legitimate home runs this season. We need her to get on (Tuesday) early.”

Ceres (21-4) advanced to the semifinals, where the Western Athletic Conference co-champions faced No. 5 Benicia on Tuesday night at the Sacramento Softball Complex.

On an adjacent field, Benicia completed an evening of upsets with a 3-2 victory over No. 1 East Union (23-2).

Instead, the tournament’s top seeds – the state-ranked Lancers and Mustangs – played elimination games Tuesday afternoon. East Union faced Yuba City, while Oakdale (21-2) met Vista del Lago of Folsom. The Mustangs trounced Vista del Lago 9-1 in Monday’s first game.

For Ceres, Monday’s victory served as redemption. The Bulldogs were 0-2 against Oakdale this season, including an 11-0 home loss March 10.

“We wanted to show them what team we actually are. That hit us hard,” said Nunes, who finished her three-hit masterpiece with two strikeouts in the seventh. “We did not like that feeling and wanted to come out and show them what we got.”

Nunes struck out nine of the first 10 batters before running into trouble in the fourth. Green homered for the second straight game, driving a solo shot down the left-field line and onto Holman Avenue. The blast spoiled Nunes’ bid for a no-hitter and 10 consecutive strikeouts.

Maddi Hackbarth followed with an infield single, setting the table for senior Haley Fuller. The Fresno State-bound slugger connected for her second homer of the day, depositing a chest-high pitch onto Holman Avenue.

Oakdale led 3-0, but momentum was fleeting.

“At one point, I was like, ‘I’m tired. I can’t throw another pitch,’ ” Nunes said. “But (my teammates) really pushed me up and helped me.”

Nunes led off the top of the fifth with a single and Jessica Arreola reached on an error. After Nunes was thrown out at third on Shelby Veuve’s grounder, Bates bounced a three-run homer off the light standard in right-center field. Before that at-bat, Bates grounded out to second twice.

“I was just focused on getting good pitches,” Bates said. “I was too anxious at the beginning. My next at-bats I waited for a good pitch and took a hard hack.”

Bates is a career .500 hitter in four years at the varsity level, and Nunes ranked Monday’s long balls among her best.

The timing couldn’t have been better.

“Nicole Bates is that teammate you can always count on,” said Nunes, a junior. “She really did come through for me.”

Ceres dominated every facet of this showdown of Stanislaus District heavyweights. Nunes walked two and retired the side in order four times, and the defense played error-free.

The Bulldogs outhit Oakdale 10-3 and had runners in scoring position every inning. Though they were just 3 for 9 with runners in scoring position, two of those hits left the yard.

“In this game especially, we were better than them and we were going to beat them,” Durossette said. “We know that any given day they’re as good or better. It just depends.

“But we wanted to win this game, and we didn’t buckle this time. (Bates) came up with a huge hit – a three-run dinger. And then, I have to be honest with you, when she came up and hit the second one, I knew she was going to hit it.”

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Bates, Nunes help Ceres softball upset Oakdale in D-III playoffs."