Here's another installment of my softball previews ...
At the end of last season, most softball fans looking ahead
to 2013 pointed to Pleasant Grove as perhaps the team to beat. Potentially,
they were going to have the best line-up in the Delta River League and perhaps
one of the top groups in all of Division I. They definitely were going to have
the most varsity experience of anyone else.
Then Kaylen Minnatee, the freshman infielder who almost
single-handedly beat Sheldon in 2012 with key hits in both of Pleasant Grove’s
wins over the Huskies, decided she wanted to play for the defending Sac Joaquin
Section champions and transferred to Sheldon. Another potential 2013 starter,
Brianna Cherry, transferred to Cosumnes Oaks.
Last season’ s starting catcher/third baseman Lindsey
Willmon and her .448 batting average and eight home runs is playing this spring
out of state. Taryn Renowden, who played two seasons ago, sat out much of 2012
with an injury, transferred to Elk Grove.
Still, the group that remains is pretty good. It all begins
with returning starting pitcher Celina Matthias. Last season she was 10-8 with
a 2.17 ERA.
Matthias has a vast repoitre of pitches, seven of them, to
go with a new tuck wind-up to confound pitchers this spring.
“I’m going to stick with this wind-up because I can push off
much better,” Matthias said.
She thinks that her velocity has picked up this season.
“But, I think I’ll get out most batters on my off-speed
pitchers,” Matthias said.
Moving in from centerfield to catch is Amber Murray. She
batted .286 last year and has already signed to play college softball at
Eastern Kentucky University.
And, in the outfield is Morgan Carter, a senior who has
inked a National Letter of Intent to play at Utah State.
A year ago the Eagles
were 17-11, finished second in the DRL, but were quickly bounced out of the
playoffs, a 5-3 defeat at the hands of West in the opening round.
Pleasant Grove’s softball team is off to a 3-2 start this
season. Eagles’ head coach Chris Murray, now in his
third season at Pleasant Grove, thinks his team will be right at or near the
top of the league once again but the league has no clear-cut favorite.
“This is the year I just can’t make a prediction who might
finish on top,” Murray said. “Things are changing. St. Francis lost their
pitcher. I am thinking Ponderosa might have the most players back except for
their catcher, so I am thinking that may be the team we’ll have to face off
against.”
Murray will have to rely on several players with no varsity
experience to fill in the holes.
“We’ve got brought up some good girls that deserve to (be at
varsity),” he said. “Katie Antiqua, Sabrina Hicks, they’ve added quite a bit.
Katie hit 1.000 in our first two games.”
Antiqua has taken over at first base and will also be the
Eagles’ back-up catcher.
A year ago, Pleasant Grove, Sheldon, St. Francis and
Ponderosa went down to the final day of the regular season with just three
playoff slots up for grabs.
Ponderosa won the DRL championship by defeating St. Francis
that day, while Minnatee’s walk-off grand slam in a 4-2 win over Sheldon put
Pleasant Grove into second place. Because of a tie-breaker, Sheldon got into
the post-season over St. Francis. The Lady Huskies then belted their way to
their fourth Section title over the previous six seasons.
They beat Ponderosa, 8-1, in the championship game to win
the 2012 title.
Murray says the sting of going one-and-out in the 2012
playoffs still smarts.
“Last year was a fluke. This year is our best shot (at a Section
title),” he claims. “We can hit the ball. I think our defense is very solid.”
Pleasant Grove won the Section title in 2009, the school’s
first and only championship in softball. That year Ally Carda was unbeatable on
the mound for the Eagles. She’s now pitching at UCLA.
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