In this day of travel teams, walk-on coaches, holdbacks, and the like, who would have thought a school team could truly be an incubator for “little chicks” (no pun intended for girls’ sports), where the proficient could prosper and the newbies could get some instruction as they try out the sport?
La Jolla High’s softball team isn’t perfect, but it is an incubator for the new to bat-and-ball where coach Anthony Sarain — he of the pony-tailed saxophone-playing who earlier put in a head coaching stint at La Jolla when his daughter Katya was a pitcher at LJHS — loves to do instruction, talks of the four levels of competence, and provides an environment in which assistant coach Kevin Hurt can assist with teaching as the Vikings find their way this season.
On one recent Monday, Sarain was running the Vikes through a drill with base-running situations: a runner starting on second and a ball hit through the hole into left field, another hit to second base, then one to right. The teaching point was what the runner on second does: if the ball is hit behind her, she’s going to head to third. If the ball is hit ahead of her to the left side of the infield, her first instinct is back toward the bag at second, then see from there.
Meanwhile, Emmy Cardenas, La Jolla’s premier pitcher/hitter, a local kind of Shohei Ohtani, has led the girls in running a lap around the campus softball field, and stretching arms.
Her dad, Bob, the team statistician, is proud to share an image on his phone of her recent commitment to Winthrop University, a Division 1 school in Rock Hill, S.C. “She said, ‘I like your swing,’” relayed the elder Cardenas of Winthrop coach Windy Thees’ assessment.
Around her, the Vikings have Gigi Smith, another junior and solid hitter, who tried her hand at catching but got injured; sophomore Kaitlyn Murphy, who moves from first base to third this year; junior Presley Cooper, in the outfield; freshmen Dani Davis, Emma Weibel, and Roxy Metcalf, all new to the team. Enzo Silliman, a sophomore, anchors the infield at shortstop. “She’s a good athlete,” says Hurt. “She’s fast. She can flat-out fly (on the basepaths).”
Amalia Leith-Garcia, a senior outfielder, came to the team earlier in its evolution from a travel-team-stocked squad to the present. Senior Violet Nightingale, a tall veteran pitcher-second baseman, keeps the team in stitches with stories of different antics.
Into the “incubator” go juniors Vivian Jensen, a lefty second baseman (“Emmy got Vivian to play, says Bob), Adriana Sanchez, and Tonantzin Radilla Jimenez; and sophomores Abby Ramirez, Andrea Lopez (now the current catcher), and Chastity Casillas. Senior Ciana Delgadillo is also in the mix.
In another drill, Davis, a freshman, demonstrated to the others how she hits “inside out,” fending off inside pitches to the opposite field (right field as a right-handed batter).
