Mater Dei’s Kobata Now Watching Her Step

Mater Dei High School softball pitcher Terri Kobata hasn’t pitched in more than two weeks because of a strained shoulder, but what distresses her more than the injury is being penalized for illegal pitches.

Kobata was called for crow hopping and leaping 11 times in the championship game of the Cypress tournament, which Mater Dei won, 5-1, last month.

“I felt confused,” said Kobata, a sophomore. “I didn’t know what to do because I had a drag on a lot of the pitches they called. I was just getting upset in my head, but I couldn’t let it affect me.”

Crow hopping is when a pitcher plants her pivot foot a second time and fails to drag her toe across the ground as soon as it leaves the pitching rubber. If the toe does not drag the ground as soon as it leaves the rubber, it is considered an extra step, and the pitch is illegal.

This season, umpires are trying to crack down on crow hopping and leaping, which have been illegal since 1976. Kobata was singled out in the umpires’ meeting before the tournament, said Cathy Quesnell, who coaches Mater Dei, the county’s top-ranked team.

“She hadn’t been called all season, then all of a sudden she gets to the Cypress tournament and the umpire is the focus of the game,” Quesnell said. “The parents were irate. Here we are in the championship game and we weren’t even happy we won the tournament.

“This was the game. We looked at the plate umpire and he called a ball or a strike. Then we looked at the first-base umpire to see if he called an illegal pitch. It was just ridiculous.

“We were just exhausted we had to go through that. It wasn’t fair. I don’t know if the umpires misinterpreted the rule or if she did it that badly.

“That was the first game that she (was) called quite a bit. I mean 11 times is a lot.”

Kobata and her father, Howard, who coaches fast-pitch softball in the summer, say umpires are misinterpreting Kobata’s technique.

In the Canyon Tournament of Champions, in a loss to Thousand Oaks, Kobata pitched in the 5-A championship game and wasn’t called once for an illegal pitch, Quesnell said.

Kobata admits she used to routinely leap on many of her pitches.

“I had taken a long break (from playing softball) one summer and when I came back I just had it,” she said. “It is like a natural thing to me now, and nobody said anything to me until this year.”

Since the Cypress game, Kobata, her father and her pitching coach, Ernie Parker, have been working to eliminate the leap from Kobata’s technique.

Parker makes Kobata dig a hole in front of the mound and put her toe in it, so when she pitches, her heel is on the pitching rubber and her toe is in the hole.

“So when I push off from the rubber it is easier for me to keep my foot on the ground and to have a drag mark for the umpire to see,” Kobata said.

Kobata puts fresh dirt over her drag mark after each pitch so officials can see a new impression in the dirt after each pitch. Though some umpires try to work with her during this forced transition period, warning her when she is getting close to crow hopping, Kobata says they do not accept her drag mark as proof that she did not take an extra step.

“Our biggest complaint with the umpires is that true, every once and a while a pitcher will crow hop,” Howard Kobata said. “But if a pitch is called illegal and a pitcher is cleaning off her mark after every single pitch, why are the umpires not acknowledging that? There is physical evidence right there.

“The pitchers right now are at a disadvantage because they have no recourse. When they clean off their drag mark after every single pitch, and they cannot get a reversal on a call, I am saying that is unfair.”