Softball
Millennium’s softball team came close to making playoffs after it finished the season 9-8 overall, 2-4 in the Harvest Christian League. The Eagles from Elliot Christian of Lodi took first in the four-team league with a 6-0 record. The other three teams all split their games and finished 2-4, and the Sac-Joaquin Section gave the second playoff spot to Big Valley Christian.
“I thought our team was good enough,” coach Ray Eakin said. “If we had played better in spots, we wouldn’t have had that three-way tie.”
Eakin said that the lesson from the second year of league play is that the girls play better in challenging matchups. Even though the Falcons went 0-4 in the
NorCal Classic tournament in mid-April, Eakin figures his team still played some good softball that week.
“I’d like to see us play better schools,” he said. “It helps us work on our coaching because is shows the girls what they need to do.”
The softball team will likely bring back most of its players next year. The only senior is centerfielder Antoinette Morris. All of the others, except junior Jaelyn Woods, are freshmen and sophomores.
Baseball
The Falcon baseball team lost the first two games of the season but came back to win five in a row, including three games by 10 runs or more. Then the situation reversed, as the Falcons won just two of the past 11 games and finished 7-11 overall, 1-5 in the HCL.
“We went from being a very strong defensive team to, in league play, averaging five errors per game,” Millennium assistant coach Drew Reyes said.
He added that the team fell short of a couple of its goals, which were to win more league games than last year and to make playoffs for the first time. Elliot Christian and Brookside Christian are the HCL teams in the playoffs.
The baseball team will lose two key seniors after this year. One of them is Jake Vierra, who has been with the team since its inception and was among the league leaders in batting and pitching for both his years in the HCL. His batting average is .489, and he recorded 55 strikeouts in 37 innings.
The other is Todd Royal, who led the team in runs batted in with 15 and turned out to be capable at every position on the diamond.
“We’re going to miss that versatility,” Reyes said.
All of the 10 other players on the team are freshmen or sophomores and can return next year.
“That’s what we need: To improve that continuity instead of starting over.”
Soccer
In its inaugural year, the girls soccer team went 5-13-3, 4-9-3 in league play. The Millennium soccer team participated in the Sacramento Metropolitan Athletic League, which sent two teams, Bradshaw Christian and Sacramento Country Day, to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI playoffs.
Falcon coach Aryel Saldate said the Harvest Christian League didn’t have enough girls soccer teams this year to make it a competitive league, but she expects that will change next year.
She can look forward to having the same group back for another season. All of the girls on the team were freshmen or sophomores.
“We had players who had not played before and developed well as players and contributed to the team,” she said.
Brianna Murawski was the Falcons’ goalkeeper for most of the season and recorded 257 saves while 41 shots got past her — an average of about 2.5 goals allowed per game.
Salina Elias was the team’s leading scorer with 11 goals, nearly half of the 24 goals the Falcons scored during the year.
Elyssa Perales played midfield for Millennium and was key in getting the ball away from opponents as they tried to approach the Falcons’ goal. She was credited with 118 steals for the season.
Golf
The Millennium High golf season wrapped up May 4 after two players, Todd Royal and Matthew Nolen, played in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI tournament at The Reserve in Stockton. Royal shot 101 on the par-72 course, and Nolen shot 109.
The top Division VI team, Turlock Christian, placed 13th out of 14 teams at the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters tournament Monday, which included Divisions I through VI.
Post a Comment