Mitty goes for three-peat and fifth title in seven years
The big question coming into the 21st Annual Livermore Stampede is can any of the CIF North Coast Section teams or the two from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section playing in the field unseat the defending CIF Central Coast Section Division II champion Archbishop Mitty team that will be looking for its third-straight title in the Northern California softball showcase and fifth Stampede championship in the last seven years.
Mitty (10-2) comes into the Jamboree as the No. 2 team from Northern California and ranked No. 7 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports in last week’s rankings. That was after the Monarchs dropped from No. 4 as the result of a doubleheader split with unranked Clovis West-Fresno (a 9-inning loss), and prior to two easy wins over Sacred Heart Cathedral-San Francisco and Valley Christian-San Jose that got them to 5-0 and comfortably atop the West Catholic Athletic League.
The only other loss Mitty has suffered was 2-1 to a state No. 3 Pioneer-San Jose team they defeated last year in the CCS D2 title game.
The Monarchs have been splitting the pitching duties with seniors Stephanie Kristo and Desiree Severance with each about equally as effective from the circle. The team batting average is .331 with three girls hitting over the .400 mark. Severance is hitting .438 and leads the team with 19 RBIs. Senior Danielle Bowers leads the team at .486 and in hits with 17, and senior Maddie Kim is right behind her at .485 and 16 huts.
All told Mitty has eight players moving on to play in college. Of the players previously mentioned Kristo is going to Manhattan, Severance to Drexel, Bowers to Cal and Kim to Army.
“We made a couple of base running mistakes in the loss to Clovis West but they’re a solid team,” said Mitty head coach Brian Yocke, who will move to baseball next season to replace Mitty legendary baseball Coach Bill Hutton.
“Looking at our pool in the Stampede all the teams look very good,” continued Yocke. “We have to figure out how to play well enough to survive our pool.”
The survival test for Mitty may come early as the Monarchs open Pool C at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday with Heritage-Brentwood after that team will be coming off a 6:00 p.m. game with San Ramon Valley-Danville.
Heritage comes into the Stampede with a 7-1 record including a 7-6 win at the Queen of the Mountain over the Clovis West team that split with Mitty.
Their lone loss was 10-7 in the second round of the previously mentioned tourney to Stampede host Livermore.
“Heritage is playing very well and sophomore pitcher Marissa Espinoza has been throwing well also. She’s the best of three underclass pitchers they have,” said Prep2Prep NCS softball analyst and correspondent Nate Smith. “Defensively they’ve been solid except for a highly uncharacteristic 10 errors in the Livermore game where Espinoza was still good. It’s the hitting that’s been inconsistent. One game they can explode and the next they’ll struggle.”
The team leader and a girl that is currently hitting the ball very well is Tennessee State-bound first-sacker Kim Trice. The defensive key and another solid hitter is speedy junior shortstop Maddy Silay. Another one of the young players currently making solid contact at the plate is sophomore left-fielder Anyssia Ramirez.
Will Heritage playing Mitty in the equivalent of a doubleheader be a factor was posed as a question to Patriots head coach Ron Rivers?
“I don’t know. That’s a good question. We would rather have played them fresh out but it is what it is. For us we just have to think about getting part San Ramon Valley then we’ll worry about Mitty.”
What about the host Livermore? Last year’s scrappy team made it to the title game where they lost 4-2 to Mitty. Right now Smith has them at No. 4 in his Prep2Prep North Coast Section rankings.
The Cowboys girls are only 4-1 coming into the Stampede but besides the win over Heritage they opened the season with an 8-6 win over pre-season state-ranked Alhambra-Martinez.
First-year head coach Gary Vignola returns senior pitcher Samantha Whalen and her valuable East Bay Athletic League experience.
According to former Livermore coach and Stampede insider Larry Bird the Cowboys have two other girls that can dunk…oops, wrong Larry Bird. This Bird, who announced his retirement at last year’s Stampede, is high on sophomore catcher Missy Nunes and freshman shortstop Madison Kahwaty.
“Kahwaty is an up-and-coming superstar we may hear a lot about in the future,” Bird remarked.
Livermore’s lone loss was to a Castro Valley team they open with in Pool A on Thursday to kick things off at 10:00 a.m. at Robertson Park in Livermore.
Speaking of Castro Valley, the Trojans won the Queen of the Mountain with a title-game win over an Amador Valley-Pleasanton team playing this weekend at the Carew Classic in Orange County, however Castro Valley (6-2) opened the season with a loss to Heritage. They also lost to Prep2Prep NCS No. 1 and Cal-Hi Sports No. 9 James Logan-Union City.
Of the Stampede participants, besides Livermore at No. 4, Smith has Castro Valley ranked No. 2, Heritage No. 5, Foothill-Pleasanton (4-1) No. 6, San Ramon Valley (4-0) No. 7, Monte Vista-Danville No. 9, Carondelet-Concord No. 10, Alhambra (4-2) No. 13, Freedom-Oakley (4-4) No.14, California-San Ramon (3-2) No. 15, and Dougherty Valley-San Ramon (5-2) at No. 17.
Besides Mitty the only other state-ranked team in the field is Benicia (11-0) the Cal-Hi Sports No. 15 team. The Panthers are in Pool C and open with fellow CIF Sac-Joaquin Section stalwart and 10-3 Cosumnes Oaks-Elk Grove.
Benicia is hitting .403 as a team and beating opponents by an 11-2 average score. They come into the Stampede after mowing down the top teams in the CIFSJS in the Victory Tournament in Elk Grove and then following that up last week with three wins including two mercy-shortened to go to 5-0 in the Solano County League.
For complete Pool play information and Thursday and Friday schedules go to https://livermorehs.schoolloop.com/2015Stampede
