St. Francis looks like class of WCAL again after beating Archbishop Mitty in battle of league's top two teams

MOUNTAIN VIEW - It's rare that a coach is as transparent about an opponent as Archbishop Mitty's Megan Yocke was after facing St. Francis on Wednesday.

“Anytime you play a team like St. Francis, it can be intimidating," she said.

St. Francis has reigned over Central Coast Section softball for several years, and that dominion isn't slowing down this season.

The Lancers are 20-2 after beating Mitty 5-2 and once again the team to beat in the West Catholic Athletic League with a spotless 5-0 record.

In Wednesday's game, the Lancers jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first two innings as Peyton Tsao set the tone with a first-inning three-run home run to right field. Mitty, which has had an excellent season so far at 17-3 and 4-1 in the WCAL, seemed shell-shocked.

And that was the truth, according to Yocke.

"We were prepared," she said. "We felt prepared. And then the first inning, everybody got a little bit more nervous, just because it is a big moment. But now that they’ve experienced it and they settled in, I’m confident that moving forward, they’ll be OK. I think it was just this first moment of, ‘Oh!' That got to them a little bit."

St. Francis started its rally in the first with a leadoff walk by Emi Yumiba, then Jamie Oakland singled up the middle to put two on. Tsao then hammered a ball down the right-field line to put the Lancers up 3-0.

"I was just trying to protect because I had a full count and I knew she was gonna have to throw me something around the zone," Tsao said. "But yeah, I just saw the ball and just made contact."

Yocke's displeasure in part came from a sloppy second inning where Mitty provided St. Francis multiple free baserunners.

After Maya Meltz led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt, Aryka Gunsagar hit a ground ball to third that resulted in a fielder's choice when Meltz escaped a rundown between third and home, sliding safely back into third. Gunsagar advanced to second on the play.

Then Yumiba reached on a fielder’s choice after her ground ball to shortstop was bobbled, with Meltz scoring on the play.

Finally, back-to-back two-out walks to Tsao and Penny Duus forced in Gunsagar with the fifth run.

"That’s how we got to win, right?" St. Francis coach Mike Oakland said. "We got to pitch, we got to play defense and we got to scrap for runs. And I thought our hitters did a great job of grinding at-bats, making her throw a lot of pitches and not a lot of easy outs. Some of our outs were tougher. So if we can do that, there’s a lot of really good pitching out there in our section.

"That’s tough. I mean, we’ve faced a lot of them. They’re good. It’s not easy to hit this year, I can tell you that."

Mitty, after getting two baserunners on through the first three innings, got on the board in the fourth when Gracie Giovacchini homered to left field in spite of the prevailing crosswind.

"That was a bomb," Oakland said. "She absolutely mashed it. That was a no-doubter."

But Mercedes Coller buckled down from there and finished off the complete game without a real scoring threat the rest of the way.

"They came out, punched us in the mouth immediately," Yocke said. "The conversation we just had as a team is that that was not who we have been all year, and that’s OK. We are allowed to have a bad game. But that is not who we are. We’ve been playing a certain way all season long, and today, we just played a little bit differently.

"We didn’t recognize ourselves a little bit, especially early in the game. Once we settled in a little bit more, we started having better at-bats. Fought a little differently with two strikes, had fewer strikeouts. Defensively, we started making plays. But those first two innings, it was an unrecognizable Mitty team. We’re coming back to work tomorrow, and we have several more games that matter."

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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 7:49 PM.