LJ softball: Medrano new assistant

Viking head softball coach
Andrea Denham
(Photo by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

Andrea Denham, second-year La Jolla High head softball coach, said Max Medrano will be a varsity assistant and help lead practice and pregame drills in the spring sport.

Denham, who attended the Viking football banquet Sun., Dec. 3 at La Jolla Presbyterian Church, also said that Katya Sarain, a former pitcher for the Vikings, will be the junior varsity coach next spring.

Medrano, a football assistant, attended the varsity and JV football banquet. He is the son of Jane Medrano, a long-time English/Language Arts teacher at La Jolla High who is also the football team academic advisor.

Denham's bringing Coach Medrano into the Viking softball fold is a minor coup of sorts. He is well-liked by the Viking student-athletes, he is young, and he apparently has the know-how to propel the softball game forward.

The Vikings are the reigning CIF Division 4 champions. Denham's team won the title in her first year as head coach. She had moved up from the JV team.

However, following the winning season, assistant coach Tracy Brown, whose older daughter Linda was graduating from LJHS in June, was already planning his move to Morse High, where his younger daughter was going to matriculate and be a pitcher.

That meant that La Jolla's program, with Coach Brown leaving, was in dire need of someone to lead drills. Denham, as head coach, concentrates more on the administrative side, which is extremely important in keeping the program going, and pitching/catching, where she specializes. She was the coach who transmitted pitch calls to catcher Hailey Ramos, who will return next spring behind the plate.

Sarain, the new JV coach, will attend college courses in the morning, then coach her young Vikings in the afternoon, according to Denham. Katya is the daughter of Anthony Sarain, the former head varsity coach. She was La Jolla's starting pitcher from 2012 to 2015, when she graduated from LJHS.

It would not seem out of the realm of possibility that while Katya will head up the JV team, her father might return to assist her. He was not an infrequent presence last season around the varsity, after stepping down as head coach, to fill in when Denham could not be present. Anthony, a professional musician who has helped pass his love of music down to his daughter, attended the Vikings' championship game at UCSD, as did Katya, last May.