JAYDEE BOURSAW (22) gets met at home plate by her SPSV teammates after hitting a mammoth two-run homer in Tuesday’s North Coast Section playoff opener.

Deijah Pangilinan and Jaydee Boursaw each hit two-run homers and Cecily Kaluza pitched a five-inning shutout as the St. Patrick-St. Vincent High softball team rolled over visiting Livermore Valley Charter Prep, 11-0, in Tuesday’s first round of the North Coast Section Division IV playoffs.

It was the fifth victory in the past six games for the No. 3 seeded Lady Bruins (17-8), who are looking for their first Section championship since 2012.

“We’re pretty confident in our team,” Boursaw said. “We’ve done really well all season and we’re hoping to keep hitting like we’ve been hitting.”

On paper, No. 14 seed Livermore Valley Charter Prep looked like a formidable opponent coming into the postseason. The Lady Hawks had won 14 straight games, went 12-0 in the Bay Counties League and had won 19-of-22 games overall. But senior Hawks pitcher Allie Sauer had probably never faced an offense as potent as SPSV’s, which has hit eight homers in its past three games – all blowout victories.

“She didn’t throw hard at all,” SPSV manager Rich Gigliotti said of Sauer. “I don’t think we’ve faced a pitcher like that all season.”

“We knew we could take advantage of their pitcher because she was throwing what we could hit,” Boursaw said. “There wasn’t much to it.”

Pangilinan greeted Sauer with a two-run homer in the first inning to get the Lady Bruins off and rolling. SPSV added five more runs in the second inning thanks to two-run singles by Natalya Ocon and Olivia Soley and a RBI double by Maria Borges.

Boursaw made it 9-0 with a towering home run to left in the fourth inning that not only cleared the softball fence, it also easily carried the baseball outfield fence.

“I think it went 300 feet,” Gigliotti said. “It was a pretty impressive hit. It cleared that other fence pretty well. We were joking about how we’re going to have to yell heads up to guys on the baseball field.”

A RBI single by Kaluza and a RBI double by Jaeleen Pangilinan later in the inning gave SPSV a comfortable 11-0 lead. That was more than enough offense for Kaluza, who pitched all five innings and scattered four hits and a walk while striking out six.

The Lady Bruins will host No. 6 seed Cardinal Newman on Friday in the NCS quarterfinals. The Lady Cardinals (16-9) crushed Lower Lake in their first-round game, 10-0.

“They’ve always got a good team and we’ve had some good games against them in the past,” Gigliotti said of Cardinal Newman. “But our team has hit more home runs than any team I’ve had here. We seem to be hitting the ball really, really well.”

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