The PGF Shootout was a quick but intense weekend of club softball as many elite teams from across the nation came to Huntington Beach, California to play pool games on Friday and Single Elimination contests on Saturday with the Championship Game taking place today.

Here’s a recap of the final that took place this afternoon at Bill Barber Park in Irvine, California…

By Martin Henderson

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Kinsley Washington knows her role on her softball team. She’s the maid. As in “maid to order.”

The words Washington uses are table-setter, but her performance Saturday was made to order for the Corona Angels-Tyson. She had two hits, was hit by a pitch and scored three runs in separate rallies as the Angels won the Inaugural PFG Shootout with a 5-2 victory over the Beverly Bandits at Barber Park in Irvine, Calif.

“My biggest goal was to table set,” Washington said after her performance. “I know the other girls will move me over and score me.”

Batting leadoff and down a run in the first inning, Washington ignited the game’s most important rally with a leadoff double.

Washington took third on a wild pitch but was held on Amani Bradley’s infield single to third base. With runners at the corners, Aaliyah Jordan hit into what might have been a double play, but Bradley took out Bandits second baseman Maddy Vermajan. Washington scored, and after a strikeout, Jordan was caught stealing.

But the score was tied, 1-1.

“We came right back,” said Angels coach Marty Tyson of his team’s answer to Bandits starter Miranda Elish. “You’ve got a pitcher going to Oregon and we got a run back.”

The Angels would eventually get more than just one run back against Elish, who’s headed to Oregon. They also scored two in the third and two in the fifth before Elish was replace by Notre Dame-bound Alexis Holloway.

It was the second time in the tournament the Angels saw Elish. They lost to the right-hander on Friday 4-3 in the first pool game of the tournament. “That was the biggest advantage,” Washington said, “seeing her and knowing what we were getting into.”

When Bandits coach Jennifer Tyrrell learned Saturday the Angels would be their opponent in the championship, she wasn’t particularly disappointed. And five pitches into the game, her optimism proved justified. Suzie Baranksi had homered.

But Tyson didn’t want to waste the momentum his team had manufactured in the bottom of the first. So in the top of the second, after starter Mariah Mazon walked the leadoff batter and went down two balls to Holloway, Tyson called on UCLA-bound Megan Faraimo.

She struck out Holloway and didn’t allow a hit until the seventh inning when she gave up a two-out homer to Holloway.

“I felt we had the momentum, and I wanted to keep the momentum,” Tyson said of his first inning rally and second inning pitching change.

The momentum might have come back around anyway as long as Washington was in the lineup. The UCLA-bound shortstop owned the plate. She stood her ground in the third inning and took a pitch on the elbow—“I didn’t move,” she said—with one out to begin a two-run rally. In the fifth, she led off with a single up the middle to begin another rally.

“She’s a triple threat: hits, bunts, slaps, and she’s improved immensely at shortstop,” Tyson said.   

In the first, Washington’s leadoff double paid dividends. She took third on a wild pitch, and held on Amani Bradley’s infield single to third base. With runners at the corners, Aaliyah Jordan hit into what might have been a double play, but Bradley took out Bandits second baseman Maddy Vermajan. Washington scored, and after a strikeout, Jordan was caught stealing.

The Angels took a 3-1 lead in the third inning. Washington stood her ground and was hit by a pitch with one out. She stole second and scored after a single and error on Bradley’s grounder up the middle. Jordan pulled a sharp single to right field and Bradley beat the tag at home plate.

In the fifth, Washington singled up the middle, took second on a grounder to short, and Aaliya Jordan was intentionally walked. Tristen Edwards singled too sharply to left field for Washington to score, and Jordan was out after rounding second too far. Pinch-runner Anna Vines stole second base and Noelle Hee doubled off the base of the right field wall for two runs. Elish was replaced by Notre Dame-bound Holloway, who got a liner to second base to end the inning.  

Faraimo faced only one over the minimum over 5.2 innings of relief before Holloway homered. Paige Carter followed with a single but the game ended on a fly to left field. In six innings, Faraimo gave up one run on two hits with three strikeouts.

“Mariah pitched two games yesterday and carried the load, so I thought she deserved the start,” Tyson said. “Faraimo pitched only one game,” the semifinals against the Choppers. “She was fresh.”

It was a situation made to order.