It’s Easy As 1-2-3 for Mortensen : Softball: Bishop Montgomery right-hander has 0.25 earned-run average and has struck out 102 batters in 45 innings.

In so many ways, this little nickname story is the perfect metaphor for Jennifer Mortensen’s high school softball career.

Meet the hostess with the mostest.

Mortensen, a senior at Bishop Montgomery High, is as dominating a softball pitcher as you will find at the high school level. Seven games into the season, she has struck out 102 batters in 45 innings, an average of 14 per contest, while allowing nine hits and one earned run.

“I call her our little hostess,” Knight Coach Alex Manilla said. “She greets the batters, or customers, with two strikes immediately. Then she sits them down with the third. It might sound cocky, but it’s true.”

It’s just that someone forgot to tell Mortensen about the hostess nickname.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” said the 5-foot-7 right-hander.

She also does not know her strikeout totals, how many no-hitters she pitched last year (two), or any of the particulars about her gaudy high school statistics.

When you are this dominant, who cares about details and nicknames?

For the record, Mortensen is a four-year varsity player, was an All-Angelus League selection during her sophomore and junior years and twice struck out 20 batters a game last season when she finished 11-8. This season, she has pitched in each of Bishop Montgomery’s seven games and is 5-2 despite an earned-run average of 0.25. She also threw a no-hitter; a three-inning, 10-0 shelling of Bell Gardens, and again struck out 20 batters in a game against Miraleste two weeks ago.

The numbers and nickname not only define her skill and talent, but they illustrate a problem.

At times Mortensen gets frustrated competing on the high school level after playing softball for 10 years and touring with a top-level squad.

“Sometimes during the games I’ll say something to girls on my team because they are not really intense all the time,” Mortensen said. “Sometimes you try to tell them to get into the game and they get defensive. It’s not like I’m trying to put them down. I’m trying to help them.

“It’s kind of frustrating. The girls I play with in the summer are more into it. They’ve been playing for a long time. The girls who go out for the school team go out for different reasons. They may go out for the team with a friend, or to be more active in school.”

Manilla said: “It affects her in terms of

her record. The loss goes to the pitcher, even though someone else may have messed up. But she takes it in terms of another ballgame, and comes back to pitch the next day.

“She should be 7-0. We had two one-run losses on squeeze plays. If we made a good fielding play, she’s 6-1. And if we can execute a squeeze play properly, she’s 7-0.

“After games, we have a sit-down session with the team. Everyone gives their input about the game. It’s a family situation.”

Although center fielder Becky Loja is batting .522 and pitcher Elizabeth Stanton shows promise, Manilla says the Knights’ playoff hopes rest with Mortensen.

“The only way I think we won’t go far in the playoffs is if her arm falls off or something,” said Manilla, who was an assistant coach for three seasons and the junior varsity coach for one season at Leuzinger High before becoming Bishop Montgomery’s head varsity coach this season.

Mortensen started playing softball when she was 7 after she was handed a flyer for T-ball at elementary school. At the age of 10, she started working with Jim Reynolds, a professional pitching coach she still works with, and has developed a repertoire of six pitches. She has been a member of an amateur touring softball summer league team for the past four years.

The summer league team, known as the California Pirettes, is composed of top players from the San Fernando Valley, Orange County and Riverside areas. The Pirettes have traveled to Washington, Texas, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

Mortensen received her first recruiting mail as a freshman and Manilla thinks that every Division I and II school in the country has sent her mail. She visited five universities before making an unwritten commitment to Texas A & M.

“Not to put high school competition down, but these summer touring tournaments are where all the recruiters go,” Mortensen said. “I think there were 50 coaches at one tournament. I get excited for those tournaments because most of the time you play against the same caliber of players. I think that the top five teams in the country are from California and play in our division.”

Manilla said Mortensen needs to work on her hitting. She is batting .350.

As a pitcher, though, she is in a class by herself.

“She has six different pitches and only uses about three a game,” Manilla said. “It’s a matter of speed, placement and setting up the hitter. . . . She needs very little help from me or the catcher.”