STOCKTON — The second-seeded Delta College softball team struck early but needed a wild four-run seventh-inning offensive explosion to finally grab a 5-1 victory over stubborn No. 15 San Jose City for a 2-0 sweep of their best-of-three CCCAA Northern California Regional series Saturday afternoon at Bucky Layland Softball Complex.

Delta College will host a double-elimination Super Regional Friday through Sunday, including No. 3 Cosumnes River, No. 7 Ohlone and the winner of the series between No. 6 Monterey Peninsula and No. 11 Taft to see who will advance to the state tournament May 19-21 at Bakersfield College.

Mustangs pitcher Peyton Rose did her part from the circle scattering three hits and overcoming four Delta (36-5) errors to help limit San Jose City (19-20).

"We kind of kicked the ball around the first couple of innings," Delta coach Jim Fisher said, "but you could see (Rose's) mental toughness. "(The errors) fazed her but she really kept her composure.

"I was OK with our offensive approach but we were just hitting the ball at them. (San Jose) was just phenomenal defensively. They are not a 15th seed. They would have finished in the top half of our conference," Fisher added.

Delta shortstop Kaylee Buhrkuhl led off the game with a double and scored from third on team captain Vanessa Contreras' sacrifice fly to deep center field.

The Jaguars rallied with a run in the bottom of the second by Kaddy Pizano after she reached on an error and scored from third on a double steal with a nifty slide past the tag of Delta catcher Chace Bailey.

San Jose pitcher Alyssa Vidal retired 16 of 19 batters through the middle innings, including 11 batters in a row until Arianna Hernandez' one-out single in the fifth.

Delta sophomore Chastity Davis led off the key seventh inning with a high infield chopper for an infield single as the lefty beat first baseman Rebecca Ralston's snag and dive trying to tag the base with her glove.

″(Davis) running (hard) is expected," coach Jim Fisher said. "(Ralston) did an incredible move to make it close. Davis earlier pounded a hard line drive into left (for an out) but then hits a routine grounder (for a hit). Stuff happens. They say those kinds of things even out, but they don't usually happen in the same game. Today it did."

Hernandez moved Davis to second with a perfect sacrifice bunt and Adriana Aguilar drilled a 1-1 pitch to the center field wall for an RBI-double to score Hernandez for a 2-1 lead in what proved to be the winning hit.

"You feel it when you know it's your pitch and I just went with it," said Aguilar, a Franklin High grad. "It was a team effort all around. We just needed to keep the ball on the ground or hit to open spots because we were hitting the ball right to (their defense). It wasn't something we had to change. We knew (the hits) would start falling eventually."

San Jose intentionally walked Buhrkuhl with two outs when Hayley Nunes grounded to second for what appeared to be an inning ending out but got a birthday gift when the Jaguars threw the ball away allowing Aguilar to score for a 3-1 lead.

Contreras immediately followed with a back-breaking two-RBI single to center for the final runs of the game.

"I struggled a little bit (at the plate) today," Contreras said. "When it came down to the last at-bat We had runners on but I knew our lead wasn't big enough. I knew I had to do something to put the ball in play in order to score those runs.

"It really showed today that it was a team effort. Everyone had to do something for us to get the job done. In the last inning of our at-bat (Coach Fisher) said, 'Together we're better," which is our team saying. We knew then we were going to get the job done and finished it. It's a really good feeling to get this series win."

http://www.recordnet.com/sports/20170506/delta-comes-alive-in-7th-as-san-jose-exits