The varsity softball team continued their dominance of the Prep League with another league championship before losing in the first round of CIF division play.
By JORDAN SMITH and BEN SAMUELS
Sports editor and Editor-in-chief
As Poly’s one hundred and first athletic year draws to a close, the Panther varsity softball team concludes an incontrovertibly successful 2008 season with a disappointing first round playoff loss.
Always a dominant force in the Prep League, the Panthers charged once again into league play this year with predictions of success, and these predictions were met with parallel results as the team crushed Prep League opposition and finished the regular season with a record of 10-2. The team had initially seen returning
league champs Mayfield Senior as the toughest opponent to be faced in league.
However, after defeating the Cubs 4-2 in the second league game of the season, the Panthers entered a bye week with unaffected optimism for the remaining season. The Panthers did not enter the regular season without being battle-tested first. Says head coach Jeff Taylor, “We played a pretty tough pre-season schedule. I knew our record in those games wasn’t really reflective of our ability as a team. We were playing some pretty big schools and it made us that much better for league.”
Flintridge Prep emerged as the only force standing between Poly and the title of League Champions, as the Panthers and Rebels approached back-to-back games at the end of the season with the equally daunting record of 8-2. After an assertion of rival dominance by defeating the Rebels 10-2 at Flintridge, the Panthers proceeded to deliver the fatal blow at home and crushed Prep 10-6, thus clinching the league title.
Junior second baseman Ally Latta played a pivotal role in the success of the Panthers this year with a batting average of .410 and .483 on-base percentage while serving as an impenetrable force between first and second base. “We were really optimistic at the beginning of the season,” said Latta. “We were returning a lot of good players from last year and it seemed like there was a fair amount of promising freshmen joining.”
In fact the entire 2007 softball roster returned for the 2008 season, including seniors Kate Hanel, Jordan Richard-Craven, and Christina Garza. The year proved to be a major surprise because the team, which had only marginal success last year, won Prep League with little trouble. In the 2007 season, Poly lost the Prep League title for the first time in more than two decades. As such, expectations after such a “rebuilding” year were fairly modest.
Nevertheless, the softball team overlooked their struggles from a season ago and essentially cruised to their 25th league title in the past 26 seasons. After claiming the Prep League title, the panthers drew North Torrance High School as their first playoff opponent. Although they had won Prep League with relative ease, the competition in CIF proved substantially more challenging, as it almost always is.
The game remained entirely within reach throughout its entirety, but the Panthers were never able to plate a runner and lost the game 5-0. Poly had only three base hits, none of which were for extra bases. North Torrance was highly productive in the opening of the game, scoring four of their five runs in the first three innings. Several of these runs were unearned, however, as the Panthers committed a costly four errors in the outfield over the course of the seven inning contest.
Freshman Stephanie Tercero was the losing pitcher, but still finished the season with an impressive 10-5 record. Senior Kate Hanel pitched the last few innings of the game in what proved to be the final appearance of her Poly softball career. Danielle Castro of North Torrance was the winning pitcher and accounted for both extra base hits in the game.
Leave a Reply