LJ softball: Notebook

Emily Alvarez, Vikes' first baseman,

takes a feed from assistant coach

Tracy Brown before game.

(Photo by Ed Piper, Jr.)

By Ed Piper, Jr.

La Jolla started right off in the top of the first in the Vikings' playoff game Sat., May 20, when leadoff hitter Josie Sinkeldam hit the first pitch from Mar Vista's Jazmin Gomez off the fence on one bounce in right-center field for a double.

Ava Verbrugghen, batting from the left side, then beat out a bunt to move the fleet-footed Sinkeldam to third before Lady Mariner first baseman Ana James threw the ball down the left field line, allowing Josie to scamper home and make the score 1-0.

But what looked like an early chance to jump all over the second-seed hosts--with a warm sun beating down on the field from early in the morning--sputtered and stopped, as the other key cogs in the Vikings' lineup made out. The game started at 10 a.m.

Kyra Ferenczy, who brought a special intensity to the mound this day, nevertheless watched a third strike go by her on her first time up. Then fourth-slot power hitter Linda Brown, due for a big hit, flew out to left and Emily Alvarez popped up to second base.

Coach Andrea Denham's crew, having passed around the rally giraffes in the pregame warmup circle in right field, started up again in the second after Ferenczy put the Lady Mariners down in the bottom of the first one-two-three.

After senior Sara Tyrus singled to right with one out and was forced at second on Sina Anae's groundout, Vanessa Shaffer lofted a fly that dropped in in left field, moving Anae--pronounced "ah-NAW-ay" by the Mar Vista P.A. announcer--to second.

Sinkeldam, batting her second time in the first two innings, then drove Sina in for her first of four RBI's. The junior shortstop accounted for five of the Vikings' seven runs of the day.