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Just how impressive was the graduating class of 2008 in local high school softball?

Valencia's Jessica Spigner was the Cal-Hi Sports and Gatorade state player of the year and she's enjoyed a great career playing at both Arizona and Tennessee, currently hitting .358 with five home runs and 20 RBIs for the Wildcats.

But not even Spigner's numbers compare to those of fellow NCAA Division I seniors Sam Fischer and Delaney Willard.

Fischer, a Simi Valley graduate, is leading the nation in hitting with a .528 average and is second in home runs with 14 for Loyola Marymount. Fischer has 35 runs and 39 RBIs in 31 games.

Willard, a former Camarillo standout, is tied for second nationally with Valparaiso's Jordan Rutkowski, hitting .485 with seven home runs, 19 runs and 30 RBIs in 24 games for Brigham Young.

The class also included:

Harvard-Westlake's Julie Fernandez -- hitting .400 with three home runs and 15 RBIs at Lehigh

Westlake's Jenna Becerra -- hitting .375 with two home runs, 13 runs and 17 RBIs at Stanford

Agoura's Desiree Beltran -- hitting .329 with four home runs, 15 runs and 16 RBIs for Oregon State

Hart's Heather Zimmerman -- hitting .300 with two home runs, five runs and four RBIs for UC Davis

El Camino Real's Kellie Caplan -- hitting .281 with 10 runs and two RBIs at Boise State

Thousand Oaks' Tiffany Messerschmidt -- hitting .267 with seven runs and three RBIs at BYU

Chaminade's Brittany Cervantes -- hitting .236 with 12 runs and 11 RBIs for Kentucky

Valencia's Lelani Bernardino -- redshirting this season at Memphis, has started 151 games over the past three years and is a career .259 hitter with 74 runs and 40 RBIs

UC San Diego defeated top-seeded Alabama-Huntsville 10-3 in the NCAA Division II softball championship game Monday in Salem, Va., to capture the program's first national title and the school's first crown in any sport since a women's soccer championship in 2001.

Led by local graduates Jenn De Fazio (Simi Valley), Kris Lesovsky (Royal) and Jennifer Manuel (Camarillo), UC San Diego (45-13) scored all 10 runs in the first three innings in support of junior pitcher Camille Gaito (35-4), who pitched six shutout innings before Alabama-Huntsville (48-6-1) scored three runs in the seventh.

De Fazio, a senior catcher, finished hitting .331 with 25 runs and 33 RBIs, going 2 for 3 with two runs and an RBI in the final which followed a solo home run against Saginaw Valley State in Sunday's 2-1 semifinal victory.

Lesovsky, a senior outfielder and the Tritons' leadoff hitter, concluded with a .305 average, along with 46 runs, six home runs and 26 RBIs. Lesovsky walked and scored twice in the final.

Manuel, a freshman pitcher/utility, hit .333 in 28 games, along with posting a 3-4 record in 13 appearances. She pinch hit in Sunday's semifinal victory, but did not appear in the final.

Five former area softball standouts have helped their teams qualify for the Women's College World Series, which begins Thursday in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Hart graduate Jessica Shults and Canyon alumna Brittany Williams will lead host Oklahoma, which is attempting to win its first national title since 2000.

Shults, a sophomore catcher, boasts a .342 average with 19 home runs and 58 RBIs. Williams, a freshman outfielder, is hitting .309 with 12 home runs and 47 walks -- the most in the Big 12 Conference -- for the Sooners, who face Arizona State in their World Series opener.

Chatsworth graduate Cheyenne Coyle, a freshman shortstop at Florida, helped the Gators become the first Southeastern Conference program to reach the World Series four consecutive years. Coyle enters Thursday's showdown with Missouri hitting .318 with 51 runs, 15 home runs and 52 RBIs.

Missouri senior outfielder Kathryn Poet, a Flintridge Sacred Heart graduate, returns to the World Series as well. After hitting .225 with nine runs and eight RBIs in 35 regular-season games, Poet has added two hits, two runs and an RBI in the postseason.

Cal junior infielder Amy Bishop, a Glendale High graduate, has appeared in 13 games, collecting one hit and scoring one run. The Golden Bears, making their first World Series trip since 2005, open Thursday against Alabama.

UC San Diego defeated Saginaw Valley State 2-1 in the NCAA Division II softball tournament Sunday in Salem, Va., to reach today's national championship game against top-seeded Alabama-Huntsville (48-5-1), a 2-0 winner over Midwestern State.

Led by local graduates Jenn De Fazio (Simi Valley), Kris Lesovsky (Royal) and Jennifer Manuel (Camarillo), UC San Diego (44-13) is seeking the school's first national title in any sport since the women's soccer team captured a championship in 2001.

De Fazio, a senior catcher, is hitting .324 with 23 runs and 32 RBIs, including a solo home run against Saginaw Valley State.

Lesovsky, a senior outfielder and the Tritons' leadoff hitter, boasts a .307 average with 44 runs, six home runs and 26 RBIs.

Manuel, a freshman pitcher/utility, has hit .333 in 28 games, along with posting a 3-4 record in 13 appearances.

Valencia graduate Jordan Taylor pitched four innings Thursday night for the U.S. women's futures softball team in a 4-3, nine-inning setback to the host Canadian national team as part of the Women's Marquee Game Series at the Canada Cup in British Columbia.

Taylor, a Michigan senior, started for the Americans, allowing four hits and three walks with two strikeouts. Taylor allowed a first-inning home run to Georgia Tech's Jen Yee before UCLA's Megan Langenfeld drove in Stanford's Alissa Haber to tie the score 1-1 in the second.

Langenfeld went 1 for 4 and scored a run for the U.S., which took a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth on a run-scoring fielder's choice by Lancaster graduate and Washington sophomore Shawna Wright, before Canada battled back to tie it again in the bottom of the inning.

The Americans took a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth when Langenfeld scored on a groundout by Arizona's Jenae Leles, but Canada rallied to score twice off Texas' Blaire Luna to secure the victory.

Danielle Lawrie, Wright's teammate at Washington and the two-time USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, pitched nine innings, allowing two hits, one earned, walking seven and striking out 10 for Canada.

The teams square off again at 7 p.m. PDT today in the second contest in the four-game series.

Adriana Sanchez, an Alemany alum, hit two home runs and had a single Tuesday for Northern Illinois in a 4-2 loss in nine innings to Depaul.

-- Gerry Gittelson

The Mission College softball team pushed Southern California's top-seed Cypress College to a deciding game Sunday in their best-of-three Super Regional, but the visiting Eagles couldn't protect an early one-run lead and fell 9-3 to see their season end one victory shy of the state tournament.

Mission (32-12), the lowest remaining seed (No. 11) in the Super Regionals, rallied with three runs in the bottom of the seventh in the second game to prevail 4-3, creating a do-or-die contest to advance to the eight-team state tournament in Salinas.

But despite Mission taking a 3-2 lead in the second inning of the final game, Cypress (45-9) scored four runs in the third and three more in the sixth to secure a return trip to the state tournament.

L.A. Baptist of North Hills graduate Allyson Salas (22-11) pitched both games for Mission, scattering eight hits and allowing two earned runs in the second game. But the fatigue of pitching three games in two days caught up with the sophomore, who gave up 11 hits and eight earned runs in the deciding game.

Kennedy of Granada Hills graduate Amanda Gutierrez went 3 for 3 with two runs scored in the opening game and Diane Ravago (Alemany of Mission Hills) had two hits and three RBIs, including the game-winning, two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the seventh.

Stephanie Boshae (Sylmar) and Evie Lugo (Kennedy) scored for Mission in the victory.

Gutierrez and Julienne Jimenez (San Fernando) both had two hits in the third game for Mission, which scored a first-inning run thanks in part to a pair of Cypress errors. After surrendering two runs in the bottom of the first, the Eagles regained the lead in the second as Samantha Durazo (Kennedy) and Adriana Todeo (San Fernando) scored.

Durazo and Boshae both doubled and Ravago and Rosheema Wise (Kennedy) drove in runs in the third game for Western State Conference co-champion Mission, which reached the Super Regionals two years removed from a 7-31 season and one year after a loss to Long Beach City College in the opening round of regional competition.

The National Pro Fastpitch league held its annual Senior Draft on Monday and three former local high school softball standouts were selected, along with UCLA pitcher Anjelica Selden.

Highland of Palmdale graduate Shannon Doepking, a catcher at the University of Tennessee, was selected by the Akron Racers in the third round with the 15th overall pick.

In the fourth round, former Chaminade of West Hills catcher Tory Yamaguchi, a redshirt senior at Indiana, was drafted with the 21st pick by the Philadelphia Force and Cambria Miranda, a Camarillo alum who has earned All-America honors at Oregon State, was the 24th and final selection, going to the Washington Glory.

For more information on the entire draft, visit the NPF Web site.