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Sac-Joaquin Section Section Division 2 softball semifinals preview: Can Hope & Grace Jenkins lead St. Francis (Sacramento) to a title?

The Troubadors are the No. 2 seed and top-ranked team in the division in our book, but it's a very competitive field.

DIVISION 2 PLAYOFF BRACKET

The Sac-Joaquin Section softball playoffs are in full swing. Here's a preview of the Division 2 semifinals.

CIF SAC-JOAQUIN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS: SEMIFINAL PREVIEWS, BRACKETS, SCORES

The Delta League will be represented in the CIFSJS Division 2 finals. The question is, by whom?

No. 3 Elk Grove (21-6-1) gets an intriguing rematch against No. 2 St. Francis Sacramento (25-3) after losing 2-0 and 2-1 to the Troubadors in league play. Both squads are led by one of the best pitcher/hitters in the state, with Elk Grove junior Aissa Silva and St. Francis senior Hope Jenkins both having seasons for the books. 

Silva is 19-5 with a 0.56 ERA and a staggering 311 strikeouts in 161.1 innings. Of the four runs she gave up to St. Francis in the regular season, only two were earned. The 49ers Sac-Hi Sports North Pitcher of the Year is also a serious hitting threat with 15 extra-base hits, a .368 batting average, 23 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.044. Elk Grove doesn't have a heart of the order with unreal power numbers, but it has a deeper lineup than the Troubadors do – one of the deepest in NorCal for that matter. In addition to Silva, Taylor Fitzgerald, Brooke Hanson, Katelyn Maciel, Adriana Delaney, Addy Buckley, and Mo Berner are all starters who hit upwards of .300. Elk Grove's offense wasn't explosive in its two playoff games, but that means the team got past Atwater and St. Mary's (Stockton) without even playing its best ball.

Jenkins was perhaps even better than Silva in those meetings with only one earned run allowed, and she hit 2-3 with an RBI in one of them. On the season, she's 23-3 with a 1.34 ERA and 282 K's in 173 innings, but the 49ers Sac-Hi Sports North co-Player of the Year might be even better at the plate: Jenkins is batting .513 with seven homers, eight doubles, 29 RBIs, an on-base percentage of .626, and a 1.521 OPS. Her battery-mate is St. Francis' other top hitter, the other 49ers Sac-Hi Sports North co-Player of the Year, and her twin sister – catcher Grace Jenkins. G. Jenkins is hitting .506 with team-highs of 11 homers, 34 RBIs, 34 runs scored, and a slugging percentage of over 1.000, good for an OPS of 1.598. Both are committed to UConn. St, Francis defeated Cordova and River Valley by a combined 13-1 to make the semifinals.

READ: THE TOP 20 MVP CANDIDATES IN SAC-JOAQUIN SECTION SOFTBALL

All in all, not much separates these teams, although St. Francis obviously has a slight edge on paper coming in, and potential a mental one with a 2-0 season series win plus home field advantage in this one. It's very likely going to be a low-scoring game like the others, with the key storyline being: can Elk Grove's deep lineup finally shake Hope Jenkins? Silva is about as good as it gets, but the Herd likely need to score two runs to have a chance here.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 Del Oro (24-4) can put on for the SFL and win a ring if it can take down CVAC champion No. 4 Roseville (21-7) and then beat a Delta League powerhouse. While technically we have Del Oro ranked a tad below St. Francis and Elk Grove, the top seed's title chances are as good as anybody's. 

Like the teams on the other side of the bracket, the Golden Eagles are led by a two-way star in UC Davis commit Caroline Grimes, who's batting .400 with four homers and 26 RBIs, and is 14-3 with a 1.75 ERA. They also feature the best trifecta of sluggers in the division, and nearly the section – Haylee Engelbrecht, Olivia Robison, and Kendal Manley, plus more supplementary firepower. Del Oro also has what a lot of other CIFSJS contenders don't – an outstanding No. 2 pitcher in Daniella Morillas, who actually has better splits than Grimes in about a quarter of the sample size for what it's worth.

For the sake of not sugar-coating anything, it's fair to say that Roseville is the heavy underdog amongst three full-blown contenders. Whereas the 2/3 matchup is a tossup, Del Oro is clear favorite in this semifinal. But the Tigers, who just beat Granite Bay, are where they are for a reason, and certainly earned that No. 4 seed with a strong regular season. They don't have a ton of big wins, but all their losses came to elite foes, and many of those games were close.

With Malaya Johnson in the circle, Roseville certainly has a fighting chance to go all the way. She's 18-5 with a 1.15 ERA and 236 strikeouts in 145.2 innings of work, and is the second-best hitter on the team this season with a .395 BA, six long balls, and 28 RBIs. Shaylen McDowell also provides star power for the Tigers as the team leader in home runs (seven), RBIs (34), batting average (0.431), slugging (0.819), and OPS (1.296). Like Del Oro, the Tigers have a deep lineup that isn't dependent on its biggest names to put up runs.

Additionally, Del Oro got a chance against the top three teams in the Delta League earlier this season and knocked off the top two of them, Sheldon and St. Francis, but fell 3-1 to Elk Grove. St. Francis and Roseville dueled to open the season and the Troubadors won 4-2.