Monrovia softball moves to top of poll

I don't know why people talk about south pas like they are such a great team. All they ever had was a pitcher and she is not anything special. All you have to do is get one hit and she'll be done. They were supposed to be the team to beat monrovia, well sorry to say but they're in 3rd place in league.

Anon,
M-Town technically does not need to get by SP in order to win CIF. HOWEVER, we likely need to beat SP in order to win league. Fortunately, Monrovia softball is not known for overlooking anybody, so I am sure those girls will show up to play every game.

How is SP this year? I remember when LC and SP dominated the RHL, especially LC with Lindsay throwing heat. Oh well, times have turned for the better.

Go Cats!

Monrovia has got to get past SP first!

Pasadena Preps.com
I don't mind you posting in here to promote your website. I'm all for promoting high school sports in the West San Gabriel Valley, and you're discussions with others here are welcome. But you should at leat provide a link on your website promoting this blog too. If not, then you have to stop posting your link on this site. Fair enough?

I hope Monrovia wins CIF this year. Those girls have come so close the past couple years. Each year they have lost to the eventual champion, in very intense games.

The fact that Monrovia has become a contender is a amazing and a true testament to Coach Medina's leadership and the dedication he has inspired from those girls.

It wasn't that long ago that it was unheard of Monrovia softball to even make the playoffs. Times change with the right ingredients.

I really wasn't blaming any coach I was just curious if I saw what I thought I saw. No blame at all.

CIF rankings...

Div. V

2. Monrovia

Come on guys, lets talk about positive things.

Go South Pas!

It shows the coaching they have been getting all season.

Stop blaming coaches. Regardless of whether the 6th inning bunt tactic was right or wrong, they were still loosing 8 to 0. Unless for the first 6 innings the coach was the pitcher, or making the fielding errors in the field, or not generating hits at bat, the players need to assume the responsibility. Until that happens, wins against decent teams won't happen!

Hesperia 2
Burbank 0

Quartz Hill 3
Burbank 0

Burbank 2
Harvard Westlake 0

YEAH THAT CASSIE GIRL IS BOMB. i saw her play the other day and she's the catchiest catcher you ever did see.
i'm jumping on the CASSIE wagon.

I'm hoping I was dreaming, but I thought I saw a Head Coach with two outs in the sixth inning of a softball game down 8-0 bunt with the number eight hitter with a runner on second to move the runner to third to bring up the number nine hitter (who has struck out 10 times this year) to the plate with two outs.

Then I ask a parent next to me if I saw that and he confirmed it. By the way the runner was thrown out at third leaving a runner at first with two outs and and number nine hitter at the plate with two outs down 8-0. And yes the number nine hitter struck out for her 11 K of the year.

So much for South Pas being a 2 player team. 1 error in the last three games shows a tight defense across the board. They are young but they are aggressive. A good sign for the rest of this year and the years to come. (6 out of the 9 starters are club players.) And so much for only 2 players hitting the ball. All but 1 hit out of 8 were registered by players other than Gogreve and Parada. And still the battery hasn't given up a run. Rank 'em where you want, they aren't going away. Should be an interesting matchup against Monrovia on Wednesday.

Bad LC lost 0-9

Monrovia won 8-0.

How'd the Monrovia vs. La Canada game go?

South Pas softball beats TC 2-0. Still no runs scored on Parada.

GO SOUTH PAS!!!!

Jim M-
I would have prayed for LC, but you ripped the Highway Patrol in another post.
LC has a good team-no shame in losing to Harvard Westlake. They are solid.

I don't ask for much from this blog, but I'm asking for all of your prayers today. Start praying for La Canada around 3:00 p.m. and don't stop until around 5:00 p.m.

Ask the big fella to be nice to the Spartan Softball team and pray for lots of errors for Monrovia so the Cats can get much need field situations to work on today. LOL

Just kidding. Good luck in the season opener to both the Monrovia and La Canada girls softball program.

Monrovia is where the Spartans are striving to get to.

Jim M.

Sorry Dawg....
Burbank 14
Pasadena 0

Burbank 13
Muir 0

Arcadia 2
Burroughs 1

La Serna beat Orange Lutheran 3-2 in the Brea Linda tournament. South Pasadena lost to Orange Lutheran 3-2 and La Serna won the tournament

La Serna 12 and TC 0. TC has very good hitters but were nuetralized by La Serna's great pitching. La Serna has very seasoned hitters and they are a mature team with year round elite players.

LC stats are still inaccurate. Example: 25 innings pitched, but 5 games played. What happened to the other 10 innings?

Did anyone see the La Serna v. TC game yesterday? What happened?!

Thanks LC for filling in OC stats.

Hello,

What do you mean by:

"Maybe you can gain comfort in the selective statistics posted by your team on Maxpreps!"

I am speaking in general terms. I think selective stats are the reason why these stats sheets are not reliable for standings, awards, college reference, etc. That statement wasn't about you it was about stats. I personally would like to see it change. Stats are a big part of baseball and softball. They shouldn't be phony or selective.

If you don't like what's contributed to the blog, don't read it or respond to it. The only bragging seemed to be from one team, and apparently appears that it was pre-mature. Jim M. seems to be the only one with any class. It's to bad that the bitterness from others is only going to get worse. Maybe you can gain comfort in the selective statistics posted by your team on Maxpreps!

I do think that this is the perfect forum to address the registering of statistics with Maxpreps. I believe that if you are not going to post statistics from ALL games, please do not post them at all. Many team's scorekeepers work very hard to get it right and that should be the ultimate goal for all teams, getting it right. What do you think?

I personally get bothered by misinformation. When there are obvious truths in a niche sport that I pay a lot of attention to, which are ignored or looked over, I think they are worth addressing. As a parent, I am probably too heated sometime. However as far as living vicariously through a child, this is a misnomer in this day and age. Kids today have so much freedom and have become so headstrong that their decision making process is usually their own. I know few kids today who do not insist on making 99% of their decisions for themselves.

I think blogs, in general, have become venues for parents to excessively brag about their own children and how superior their kid's 'gold' club team is, and how their kid is one of the '5 best pitchers' in the SGV, etc. They feel the need to write paragraphs, yes, ad nauseum, about the smallest details of the sport they are fixated on. Preseason 'chest thumping' and treatises about why your team should be top-ranked are ridiculous. The problem is these parents live vicariously through their children and wish they themselves were the ones picking up the bat and glove.

noitall...you couldn't have posted under a better name!
Check out our new blog at pasadenapreps.com

Every point noitall made is correct. zzz, you seem so bored with everything that is on this page, why don't you bring up something interesting rather than being a hater.

I can't fully explain what I saw today at Valley College when Harvard Westlake beat La Canada 9-0 today. I was ready to jump on the La Canada Band wagon, but I'm going back to my rightful spot sitting on the fence.

I'm sorry about my input in the blog before. I'm in wait and see mode.

Again I'm very sorry I jumped the gun.

Jim M.

M-TOWN WILL TAKE RH & ARCADIA WILL TAKE PACIFIC LEAGUE.

Get over yourself, noitall. You are so boring!

Still no statistics for the LC vs OC game on Maxpreps. I 've got an idea, if you record no more stats your players will have .818 and .714 batting averages the whole season. No, a better idea, just count the at bats where they get hits and they will bat 1.000 on the year. No even better, just make it up as you go along and put whatever you want. You might as well.

HOLLA AT CASSIE GOGREVE of sp full ride to USC (south carolina)

I have absolutely no affiliation with South Pasadena or their softball team, and I have really no purpose in supporting their team other than to add some unbiased clarity to this discussion.

The suggestion that the South Pasadena softball schedule thus far is anything less than highly competitive and that they have played their non-league games against anything but the very high level and skilled teams is simply wrong and is made by the “uninformed”. The teams with which they’ve competed thus far are excellent high level teams with very good pitchers. The same could be said for Monrovia. Congratulations to those two coaches for challenging their teams with such competition and congratulations ladies for competing so successfully. Next Wed. should be fun, and that’s what it’s all about!

Also, kudos to the South Pasadena, Alverno, and Sacred Heart coaches (just 3 I’ve noted, there are probably others) for putting their egos aside and not always pitching their “Aces” during these early season non-league games and giving other kids the opportunity to pitch and develop. That’s also what it’s all about! Thank you for not succumbing to the lure of padding meaningless statistics (which are typically grossly misstated or selectively omitted on Maxpreps anyway). That’s why they are ignored by college and travel ball recruiting coaches.

Also, the suggestion that high run totals in a game is an indicator of a good team is made by the “unexposed”. To be a high level team and to compete with other high level teams, it all starts with a great pitcher. A great pitcher almost always dominates great hitters. That is why the scores between two great softball teams are almost always very, very low scoring affairs. The thing is it takes just one single mistake pitch to score a run. That is the pitch the great hitters are looking for against the great pitcher. The “informed” and “exposed” understand what defines a great pitcher is:

• they keep their pitch counts to less than 12 to 15 pitches an inning,
• they almost always stay ahead of the batter in their counts (i.e., 0-2, 1-2), and
• they seldom, if ever, walk a batter

Great pitchers have a multiple of pitches and they possess the ability with all of their pitches to:

• command the strike zone,
• hit specific location (i.e., control) at will, and
• have a range of speed up to at least the very high 50’s (60’s is even better)

It should be noted that pitch speed is virtually useless without the pitcher’s consistent ability to command and locate.

My observation is that there are 5 of these great pitchers along the 25 mile 210 corridor around Pasadena. If a kid is aspiring to be a great pitcher, this is the formula and what they should aspire. Bottom line, high run totals in a game are more attributable to substandard pitching than an indicator of great hitting or a great team. Likewise, low run totals in a game are more attributable to great pitching and not an indicator of poor hitting or a poor team.

One last statement, “rankings – schmankings” … who cares. They are meaningless!!! They are seldom accurate and they typically only serve to falsely and temporarily satisfy egos. That’s why the kids play the games and league play and CIF will accurately determine the rankings. Good luck ladies … I can’t wait to see!

The Pacific's a 4 team race. Burbank, Arcadia, CV and Burroughs will battle until the last week. Burroughs might be the surprise.
By the way I think those 4 would beat South Pas.

Let it go, SP Parents! Let the kids play speak for itself. Time will tell...

SP is way over rated - they are a one girl team

I don't know about this,

The teams that have moved in front of SP have played mostly weak teams with terrible records.

total records of teams played:

Sam Marino (5-1) vs opponents (4-20)

Alverno (4-1) vs opponents (16-20)
(w/ Sacred Heart, who they lost to, accounting for 5 of those victories.)

Temple City (3-0) vs opponents (6-10)
(tested against La Serna tonight)

FSHA (5-1) vs opponents (15-16)
(probably the best of the group)

South Pas (2-2) vs opponents (15-13)
(played against "great teams")

I don't see any reason for a 4 spot drop in the rankings

oops you are right. Sorry. Then why the drop in ranking, isn't that rewarding playing early season weak opponents?

Okay, I see the problem, you were looking at the baseball rankings comment.

Where did I say South Pas hasn't played a winning team? The comment in today's rankings said, "both losses to great teams." I think someone else should do their homework.

Fred,

You should go down and and take a look at La Serna and Temple City playing tonight in the Arroyo tournament. That is the quality team that SP played in the Brea Olinda Tournament. If Temple City beats them they deserve to be #1 overall.

Wow Fred, you got that one wrong. SP is playing great teams that do have winning records.

Fred,

I am pretty sure that you won't respond to this but in your rankings you said that South Pasadena has not played a winning team, but you seem to fail to notice that So Pas played Orange Lutheran (6-2) and Laguna Hills (6-2) who was 10-0 in their D1league last year 25-6 overall and lost their CIF playoff game 8-5 to the overall D1 champions Santiago. SP lost to them 11-1 but when Parada came into the game she shut them down. They are a D1 powerhouse. Lutheran has only lost two games: one to undefeated D1 team LaSerna and D1 (6-2) Mission Viejo. Segerstrom is a new school with major funding who has an excellent pitcher but not much of a team. After SP beat Brea Olinda they went on to beat CIF D3 3rd ranked Sunny Hills. These games are what they are, but if you moved SP down in the rankings because they "have not played a winning team," you have not done your homework and are flat out wrong.

Not a lot yet, I watched Arcadia in the San Dimas tournament, and a couple innings when Monrovia played La Salle early in the season. But I'm still familiar with most from last year.

Fred, have you seen all of these teams play this year? Which games have you seen?