St. Francis routs Liberty in intersectional matchup of last year's CCS, NCS top-division champions
MOUNTAIN VIEW - It's a nice feeling when you can take a Mercedes out of the garage.
St. Francis has that luxury whenever the Lancers need it. And they grabbed the keys once again on Wednesday in Mountain View.
Sophomore pitcher Mercedes Coller, who has taken over the ace role from now-Stanford pitcher Ava Bulanti, flummoxed Liberty across six sterling innings, setting the tone for St. Francis' 7-0 win.
The matchup pitted last season's North Coast Section Division I champions against the top team in the Central Coast Section's Open Division last season.
And the game was never supposed to happen in the first place.
The King's Academy canceled a planned date with St. Francis after star pitcher Katia Nesper was injured, while Liberty lost a game due to a league forfeit.
So St. Francis coach Mike Oakland called up Liberty coach Brandi Macias, a longtime friend whose players have competed against Oakland's on the club softball circuit for years.
It was a match made in scheduling heaven. And the Lancers put forth a top-to-bottom performance against a team they could see down the road in the CIF NorCal regional playoffs.
"They’re really good," Oakland said. "They’re loaded, and they’re well coached, and they’re gonna do really well this year over there."
Liberty (14-4) is really good, but St. Francis (18-2) was clearly better on Wednesday, and Coller had a lot to do with that.
She mixed speeds and located effectively to keep the Lions off balance, scattering two hits across six scoreless innings.
"Mercedes pitched lights-out," Oakland said.
It wasn't perfect. Coller navigated some traffic in multiple innings and contended with three additional baserunners from walks.
But when she needed her defense, it was there to back her up.
The Lancers turned double plays in the second and sixth innings, and Coller stranded Madison Tuttle on second by inducing a pop fly from Jewel Cooper to end the third.
"Towards the end, I was a little tired, so I really had to rely on my teammates to back me up," Coller said. "And obviously they did. They made a bunch of really good double plays and everything. They really came through."
St. Francis' bats were later-arriving but provided for the Lancers late in the game. After scoring in the first inning with a hit-by-pitch, single and three consecutive walks, Malianna Liongitau broke through with a deep two-run homer to center in the fifth, putting the Lancers up 4-0.
"That was huge," Oakland said. "A four-run game versus two is massive. She smoked it."
Then in the sixth, St. Francis strung together a two-out rally with an RBI bunt single by Jaime Oakland, Peyton Tsao's line-shot double down the right-field line and Penny Duus' bloop single to left.
"We work really hard day in and day out, and we have a ton of leadership within this program," Macias said. "And sometimes, I wonder if we feel like we can walk onto the field and we’re going to automatically get the win.
"Right now, we’re being humbled. We need to get back to the little things matter and start playing as a team instead of possibly some individuals and outcome-based."
St. Francis got a boost of confidence in the way the Lancers methodically took apart one of the best teams in the East Bay.
For a younger group that lost Bulanti and other key seniors from last year's team, the Lancers are starting to find the identity of this year's team as the stretch run approaches.
And so is their turbo-charged star in the circle.
"I definitely feel more comfortable," Coller said. "I feel more comfortable with my team. I feel like more of a leader of the team. Last year I was a freshman, I was new, didn’t really know where I stood on the team.
"But this year, I’ve definitely become more comfortable. And I’ve helped the team, helped the freshmen especially get more comfortable with everybody on the team. Every person we lost, we had someone filling in that spot. It’s hard that we lost all these seniors, but it’s everybody on the team stepping up. So it’s not really a bad thing."
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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 7:28 PM.