Moorpark softball remains unbeaten thanks to Madison Finnerty’s pitching dominance
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MOORPARK — Tuesday afternoon’s softball game between Moorpark and Oak Park moved along swiftly. All six and a half innings took just an hour and a half to play.
Part of the reason Moorpark’s 5-1 win in the Coastal Canyon League game came so quickly was Madison Finnerty’s fast pace in the circle. She took little to no breaks between pitches in the seven innings that she threw.
“Their pitcher works really quick,” Oak Park coach Eric Pryor said. “I don’t think it bothered our hitters too much, but other pitchers, we have a little ore time to get ourselves ready in the box.”
The junior gave up five hits and struck out eight batters. She is now 9-0 from the pitcher’s circle this season.
Moorpark improved to 13-0 overall and 4-0 in the Coastal Canyon League. The Musketeers lost last season in the CIF Southern Section Division 4 championship game, but they returned most of their roster this season.
The Musketeers scored one run in the first and second innings for a 2-0 lead, and added three runs in the third inning.
Finnerty doubled to center field to get on base in the third. After that, Driana Martinez, Daniela Isarraras and Sydney Burckhard each hit RBI doubles to increase the lead to 5-0.
Finnerty appreciated the run support.
“I think we’re just very competitive,” Finnerty said. “We want to win every game. Everyone plays a role on the team and everyone does their part for us to win.”
Oak Park (9-6, 1-3) scored in the sixth inning. Zoe Vanderbok singled and Amanda Smith walked. Moorpark coach Bill Finnerty, who is also Madison’s dad, called a timeout at that point.
Madison Savannah Mitchell came up with a single to score Vanderbok, but Madison Finnerty got a strikeout and a groundout to finish off the inning.
“Just kind of focusing on the next pitch and not worrying about the prior pitches,” Bill Finnerty said of his message in the huddle. “If you tried to take her out of the game today, she would’ve been like, ‘no, I’m not coming out.’”
Three Finnerty sisters have either gone through or are currently part of the Moorpark softball program. Caitlin Finnerty was a senior on last year’s team and Kiley Finnerty is a freshman this year. Bill’s sister, Meaghan Stotts (formerly Finnerty), has also coached at Moorpark in some capacity for years and went through the program herself as a player.
To add to the family feeling, most of the current Moorpark players have been playing together since they were in the Moorpark Girls Softball 6U program.
“I think that’s what makes our team great is that it is a family environment,” Madison Finnerty said. “And we all are super close with each other that we can tell each other what we need from each other. That helps a lot, having the family environment.”
Finnerty, who has been pitching since she began playing softball, had pitches clocked up to 65 mph recently.
She pitched a perfect game with 13 strikeouts last season in the CIF-SS semifinals against Temple City.
Moorpark was moved up to Division 2 this season, but winning the program’s first CIF-SS title is still a goal this season.
“This year we’re really focusing on showing that we can get back there (the CIF-SS finals) even though we’re in a higher division,” Madison Finnerty said. “We want to get back there because that made us all want it more, since we didn’t have the outcome we wanted.”