Colusa girls land D2 championship

The Colusa County senior girls softball team defeated Olivehurst/Linda on Tuesday in the District 2 semifinals, 11-8. They triumphed a second time over Wheatland, 1-0, Thursday for the D2 championship.

Colusa 11, Olivehurst 8

Colusa rallied from an early five-run deficit Tuesday to topple Olivehurst/Linda, 11-8, batting around to score 10 runs during the third inning.

Clean-up hitter Emiley Correa homered to put Colusa on the board in the second inning. The team sent 14 hitters to the plate in the third to swing the momentum.

Abby Cranford, Kodi Gimblin and Laura Wells opened the rally with back-to-back-to-back base hits.

Correa drew a base on balls, forcing in a run with the bases loaded, and Kayla Cuhna drove in another run on a fielder’s choice.

Katrina LaGrande reached on an error, Mack Van Fleet walked and Kendall Otterson drove in Cunha as the go-ahead run.

Wells and Correa struck again later in the inning, with a RBI double and RBI single, respectively.

Cranford was 2-for-2 with two runs scored, Wells scored three times, going 2-for-4 with two stolen bases, and Correa finished with a pair of hits and runs scored.

Cuhna relieved Van Fleet in the first inning, and turned in a brilliant relief effort. Cuhna threw 6 1-3 innings, allowed four runs on four hits with four strikeouts for the win.

Colusa 1, Wheatland 0

After sending Wheatland to the loser’s bracket in the tourney opener, Colusa eliminated them in a 1-0 contest Thursday in the championship round.

Gimblin tripled to deep right and scored on Wells’ RBI single in the fourth to account for the game’s only run.

Gimblin and Wells each finished 2-for-3 and Cuhna, Otterson and Van Fleet combined on the hill for a three-hit shutout.

Cuhna started and pitched four innings for the win. She gave up three hits, walked none and fanned five.

Otterson struck out a pair in two innings of work, but ran into trouble in the seventh, issuing back-to-back walks with no outs.

Van Fleet, eager to overcome her pitching woes from the Olivehurst start, rebounded to retire three in a row for the save. She slammed the door with two clutch strikeouts, with the potential tying run lurking on second base and the winning run at first.

The section tournament starts July 14 in Eureka.