U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES 1991 : Another Miss for No-Hit Specialist : Women’s softball: After demonstrating dominance through the early rounds, Michele Granger comes up short in the gold-medal game.

Lisa Fernandez upstaged Michele Granger, the first player to pitch two no-hitters in a U.S. Olympic Festival, in the women’s gold medal softball game Wednesday night before a standing-room only crowd of 3,500 at Hjelte Park in Encino.

Fernandez, a right-hander from Long Beach, gave up only three hits and drove in two runs to lead the Raybestos Brakettes, representing the East, to a 5-1 victory over the Whittier Raiders, representing the West.

The UCLA junior struck out 11 and allowed only one player past second base until the seventh inning, when she loaded the bases with two out by giving up a single and hitting the next two batters.

Raybestos got the final out on a pop-up to first baseman Sheila Cornell, a former UCLA standout from Glendale.

Placentia’s Granger, who had given up only 11 hits in five Festival games, surrendered eight hits and one walk Wednesday, but struck out 13.

After she had allowed only one hit in the first three innings, Raybestos got to Granger in the fourth inning on four hits, including doubles by Dionna Harris and Jill Justin. Following Justin’s double to left field, Cornell drew a walk and Kristine Schmidt loaded the bases when she reached on an error. Fernandez followed with a two-run single to right field for a 3-1 lead and control of the game.

After failing to reach the championship game in two Festivals, Granger ranked the opportunity to take home a gold medal in the 1991 Festival over the two no-hitters she threw en route.

Granger, who was scheduled to alternate starts with Heather Compton, appeared tired in the mid to late innings Wednesday. Compton was limited to four innings in the Festival--pitched on the first day--because of a strained shoulder muscle.

Before the championship game letdown, Granger livened up pool play with her no-hitters. She has three overall, including in the bronze-medal game of the 1987 Festival at Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

A perfectionist, the 21-year-old did not consider her second no-hitter on a chilly, windy Tuesday night an exceptional performance.

“I don’t think I threw all that great, to tell you the truth,” Granger said. “There were a couple great plays by my defense. That’s why I got it.”

Among the plays that preserved Granger’s place in the Festival record books: a running catch by left fielder Amy Geldbach, a diving catch of a blooper by center fielder Denise Eckert Day and a line drive caught by first baseman Amy Love.

Granger will admit, however, that the other no-hitter Saturday against the Redding, Calif., Rebels, representing the North, was a standout effort.

The key was that her signature pitch, the rise ball, was breaking perfectly in front of the plate and then rising above batters’ swings as it crossed the plate.

“It worked really well that first game, but after that it has fallen,” Granger said. “So I’ve been working low outside and inside.”

The scoreboard at Hjelte Park does not display hits, and because she makes a point not to ask how many hits she has given up, Granger did not know she had thrown a no-hitter until each game was over.

“I’m concentrating on shutting them down each inning so I try not to keep track,” she said. “If I do, it just makes it more difficult.”

Because the Festival brings together the best four teams in the country--the top finishers at the American Softball Assn. major national championships from the previous August--Granger’s dominance is impressive. But she is no stranger to no-hitters.

In the 1987 Pan American Games at Indianapolis, Ind., she threw one no-hitter and three one-hitters. At Valencia High, she threw three no-hitters in a week on two occasions.

Granger is one of the world’s dominant pitchers for two other accomplishments.

In NCAA competition for California, where she will be a junior next year, she struck out all 21 players in a seven-inning game against Creighton. And, in 1986 Festival competition at Houston, her earned-run average was 0.00.

Along with a nagging inflammatory condition in her left (throwing) hand, Granger has been bothered by a tear in her left index finger. The rules prohibit pitchers from wearing tape or bandages on their throwing hands, but the coaches of the other three Festival teams have not protested Granger’s bandage. So she pitched in all six games, starting five.

Because the Festival and the Pan American Games have represented the pinnacle of competition for Granger, she would love nothing more than to go one step further to the Olympics.

Her hopes were dashed for 1992, then lifted last month after a 23-year battle by ASA executive director Don Porter to get medal status for women’s softball. It will happen in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

The problem now is timing. Can Granger balance a career, her marriage to Cal law student John Poulas and still play year round?

She isn’t sure beyond her next two years at Cal.

“Anything can happen,” Granger said.

The majority of her teammates on the Pan American team are in the same situation--in their early 20s, which would make them 28-31 in 1996. That is not necessarily too old. Former UCLA standout Barb Booth, a Pan American Games catcher, is 29, and Suzie Gaw, who will play in her fourth Pan-Am Games, is 31.

Raybestos shortstop Dot Richardson, who will be 33 in ‘96, is one of several top players, such as Booth and Gaw, who are on their way to professional careers outside of sports.

A third-year medical student at Louisville, Richardson believes she can continue playing softball until the Olympics despite the demands of her medical career.

“I will be a third-year resident, so that will be perfect timing,” Richardson said sarcastically.