Nipomo beats Paso Robles 3-1 to earn first league victory of the season
Nipomo High’s softball team had hit a rough patch of late, having lost four in row coming into Tuesday after winning its first two games of the season.
But the Titans (3-4, 1-1 Sunset) got back on track with a gritty 3-1 road win over Paso Robles (6-4, 0-2 Sunset), a game delayed by 45 minutes to a 6:45 p.m. start time due to heat in North County.
In a hard-fought, defensive battle, the teams were locked at 1-1 until the sixth inning when Nipomo put together a rally in the sixth on singles by Arianna Lanier and Natalie Mendez, prior to Sophie Queresma lacing a RBI double to right to give the Titans a 2-1 lead, and raising her arms in celebration as her teammates cheered her on.
Nipomo then added an insurance run in the seventh on a hard hit single Allison Robles to score Alie Camacho, the team’s leading hitter batting .591 coming into the game. Camacho reached base on a walk.
Paso Robles’ only run came on an RBI single, a sharply hit ground ball by freshman Noemi Ayon, scoring Riley Moore. Ayon and Moore each went 2-for-4 to lead the Bearcats at the plate.
Moore is Paso Robles’ top hitter, batting .516 coming into the game.
But the story of the matchup, a long history between the teams with traditionally strong softball, was the pitching.
For the Titans, sophomore Alyssa Van Muysen went the distance, working out of several jams throughout the contest to hold Paso Robles to one run.
Van Muysen said that she has been working to strengthen her legs to be able to push off and generate power. The right-hander successfully threw an effective fastball, along with a wide variety of offspeed pitches to keep Paso Robles’ hitters off-balance.
“I’ve been doing a little bit of weights, but I’ve mostly been doing jump squats, which help a lot because, because I have to focus more on my lower half,” Van Muysen said. “It is what generates my speed. It’s mostly about trusting myself that I can make the pitch I need to make happen.”
Her arsenal consists of a fastball, change up, curveball, backdoor and a screwball, among other pitches.
“I’m always thinking, ‘Okay, if I have an 0-2 count, I’m going to try to keep it off of the plate,” Van Muysern said. “The team is starting to have more fun working together and producing.”
Nipomo Coach Robert Oliver said that Paso Robles is a strong program.
“So for us to come up here and get a win, I’m really proud of our girls,” Oliver said. “We’ve been really scuffling this season. And it was nice to see them just make the plays they’re supposed to make. We made a couple mistakes in the middle of the game, and we bent, but we just didn’t break. So it was like they were able to just get it down, get that last out, get back out of the inning, and then get another run or two on the board.”
Oliver said his advice to the girls to bounce back from the losing streak was “to just settle down” and focus, and just to “have fun.”
Paso Robles split the pitching duties between Bella Trout and Preslie Lyles, who each had strong outings as well.
Trout, a sophomore with a 1.95 ERA on the season, struck out three and gave up just one earned run in three innings.
Lyles, a junior who has a 3.46 ERA, punched out 11 Nipomo hitters in four innings of relief, giving up two runs, one of them earned.
This story was originally published March 17, 2026 at 10:43 PM.
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