JC Notes / Irene Garcia : El Camino Women Face Strong Moorpark in Softball Regionals

For the second time in five years El Camino’s softball team compiled a perfect league record. The Warriors, who defeated Canyon in Wednesday’s first round of Southern California Regional playoffs, went undefeated in the five-member South Coast Conference (15-0, 28-11 overall).

Third-seeded Moorpark will play host to the No. 6 Warriors in the second round at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The last time El Camino did this well was in 1984 when it compiled a 14-0 league record and Coach Julie Feenstra was named Coach of the Year.

This season Feenstra and Pasadena’s Sandy Iverson were named Co-Coaches of the Year in the league. Five El Camino players were named to the SCC first team, three to the second team.

Sophomore catcher Carolyn Pele and freshman pitcher Candy Carrico were the league’s Most Valuable Players and both were named to the all-Southern California Regional squad.

Pele leads the Warriors at the plate with a .439 average and 21 runs batted in. Carrico is El Camino’s best all-around player. The Leuzinger High star has a 10-0 conference record (.29 ERA) and a .343 batting average. She has 12 RBIs and 13 stolen bases.

“Candy is just an incredible athlete,” said El Camino assistant coach Sue Nelson, who played softball there two years ago. “She can play well at any position. Candy can do it all.”

The other first-team selections are shortstop Brandi Pilato, third baseman Kris Massare and outfielder Nikki LaRoche. Utility player Alissa Willard, center fielder Holly Pivovaroff and right fielder Lisa Smith were named to the second team.

“We’re pretty balanced,” said Feenstra, who has led teams to the playoffs six of nine years at El Camino. “Candy throws well, but she has a good defense behind her. We are playing well, not awesomely in every area, but well.”

Feenstra, an all-around athlete in college, has a strict conditioning program for her players. It includes running, which the 32-year-old practices with her team. Although Feenstra is about 13 years older than most of her players, she always finishes ahead of the pack.

“I don’t think they try hard enough,” said Feenstra, who has a masters in exercise physiology from Cal State Long Beach. “If my coach ran with me, I’d bust my butt to beat her.”

That’s probably what it takes to finish ahead of Feenstra, who was on Cal State Long Beach’s 1979 national champion field hockey team. She also played two years of softball and basketball at Orange Coast College and four years of AAA softball.

At El Camino she teaches aerobic fitness, weight training and physical education for the handicapped.

Harbor College’s baseball team will finally be tested in the regional playoffs next week. The Seahawks, seeded fifth in the Southern Region, swept the Southern California Athletic Conference title by 10 games and appear eager for tougher competition.

They should get it at Rancho Santiago on May 19 where they’ll face No. 4 Palomar in the third round of the playoffs. Palomar (18-6, 21-15-1) is the first-place team from the Pacific Coast Conference. Harbor ended its season with a 13-1 victory over L.A. Mission and an 18-2 SCAC record (29-13 overall).

“Palomar is very comparable to us,” said Harbor Coach Jim O’Brien, “and they’re very good, but I think we can beat them. We’re playing very well right now.”

If the Seahawks survive the double-elimination tournament, they’ll advance to the state final four on May 26-30 at Sacramento College.

El Camino baseball Coach Tom Hicks knew all along that his team wasn’t as good as last year when it swept the South Coast Conference title, but he was positive that his young club would at least make the playoffs.

The Warriors (8-12, 27-18) didn’t. They tied Mt. San Antonio College for third place in the conference and were denied one of two at-large playoff berths. Orange Coast (29-11-1), the Orange Empire’s third-place team, and Grossmont (29-12), the Pacific Coast’s third-place team, got the berths.

“Sure it’s disappointing,” Hicks said, “because we’d like to have the season continue. But I thought that for the number of freshmen we had this year we had a good season. We didn’t finish as strongly as we would have liked to, but I still say it was a good year.”

Freshman outfielder Marvin Bernard made the SCC first team and freshmen Heath Jones, Wayne Johnson and Denny Hocking made the second team.

El Camino’s Todd Douglas placed fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke at last week’s state swim meet. His 59.59 finish is a school record and his personal best. The freshman from Mira Costa High also placed ninth at the state meet in the 200-yard breast (2:11.17). He won both events at the South Coast Conference championships at Cerritos College the previous week.

El Camino finished fourth at the seven-team SCC meet and the women finished third.