Orange County Player of the Week : Norville Has Perfect Answer for Slump

Pat Norville pitched a game that hushed the detractors’ mouths, brought tears to his father’s eyes and gave new life to a struggling team.

Not long after Estancia Coach Ken Millard stomped out of practice, saying his young team wasn’t even trying to play to its potential, the Eagles held an impromptu meeting in center field, trying to uncover a way to turn around a 1-9 season. They must have found something.

In Estancia’s next game, on Friday, Norville, The Times’ Player of the Week, pitched a perfect game, which happens in high school baseball about as often as moon rocks fall from the sky. Saddleback sent up 21 batters, and Norville and Co. sent them all down and secured their second victory, 1-0. Norville struck out five.

“It started out like any other game,” said Norville, who lasted only four innings in his first start this season. “But when I got into the groove I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got something going here.’ ”

The game also surprised Norville’s coach.

“He’s not a power pitcher at all,” said Millard. “He doesn’t get 12, 13, 15 strikeouts a game.”

Norville said a teammate told him in the fifth inning that he was pitching a no-hitter.

“I knew I had a no-hitter going, but I wasn’t thinking about it,” Norville said. “I was just throwing the pitches they wouldn’t be able to hit.

“The defense was really helping me a lot. Everything was working. Some of our leading hitters told me to keep changing the speed of my pitches.”

And it all worked.

In the sixth inning Frank Herman scored for the Eagles on a passed ball. Norville said his adrenalin really began pumping in that inning.

“I sprinted off after the sixth and said, ‘Hey, guys, let’s do it,’ ” he said.

“I wasn’t thinking perfect game until the seventh inning. I knew it when they told me, ‘1-2-3 and that’s it.’ I was getting jazzed. I felt like I was the center of attention.”

Two strikeouts and a popup later, he definitely was.

After the game, Norville said his father, George, had tears in his eyes.

“I told him, ‘This one’s for you,’ and gave him a hug.”

The Eagles say that since the perfect game, fellow students no longer compare them to the school’s 0-10 football team.

“For a while, it was like we got the key to the door but it won’t open,” Norville said. “We’re on the hump but can’t get over.”

But that has changed, at least for now. The Eagles won again yesterday, defeating University, 7-3. More players are staying after practice, believing they can still be one of the three Sea View League teams to make the playoffs.

“Nobody is usually here now,” Norville said, watching six teammates still practicing, although the coach had called it a day more than an hour earlier. “These guys wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that (Friday’s) game.”