Brea-Olinda’s Cardenas Has Fun Doing the Dirty Work on the Diamond : Softball: Junior shortstop was the Orange League’s MVP last season when she hit .442 and had a .927 fielding percentage.

Samantha Cardenas slams head first into the base. She gets up and wipes the dust from her uniform.

It is a scene Cardenas repeats often during the softball season, and it’s all for fun.

“She likes to dive head first,” Brea-Olinda Coach Sharen Caperton said. “She loves to get dirty, and if she’s not dirty--even in practice--she thinks she hasn’t played well.”

Caperton says Cardenas, a junior, has fun in practice, but adds that there’s a serious side to her shortstop that comes out during games. Cardenas, a fierce competitor, helped lead Brea to a 10-0 record last season in the Orange League.

Cardenas was named the league’s most valuable player in 1991, when she hit .442 with 31 hits and had a fielding percentage of .927. She also drove in 13 runs and scored 15. She ranked among the county leaders in batting average, hits and triples.

“The MVP award usually goes to a pitcher,” said Caperton, who expects Cardenas to break most of the school’s offensive records by her senior year. “And for a sophomore to get MVP, that’s very unusual. But when the coaches saw her stats down on paper, they had to go for it.”

One of Cardenas’ assets is her strong arm.

“As a shortstop, I try to cover a lot of ground,” said Cardenas, 16. “You have to get the ball when it comes up the middle or when it goes in the hole between third and short. And it’s really fun when you get to dive for one and get it.”

Caperton says Cardenas exhibits good range at her position.

“She has a tremendous arm,” said Caperton, who is entering her seventh season coaching softball at Brea. “I try to hit the ball past her and I have trouble getting by her. She works for it. She’ll dive in practice and go after a ball and backhand it.”

Cardenas also takes an unselfish attitude when it concerns her teammates. Although she prefers playing shortstop, Cardenas will play any position if her coach asks her. Last season, Caperton needed Cardenas to fill in at catcher a few times. Though Cardenas dislikes the position, she didn’t tell her coach.

“When I asked her to play catcher, she didn’t complain,” Caperton said. “Instead, she said, ‘I’ll do it.’

“That’s a team player, and it’s the only kind of people I like.”

Cardenas has been a team player since she was 9, when she started in Bobby Sox. She sharpened her softball skills by playing with the Crackerjacks, a traveling team, and most recently the Orange County Athletics.

In fact, a number of her teammates have played together in the past.

“It helps to know each other,” said Cardenas, who was introduced to the sport by current teammate Bridget Ormsby. “We’ve been playing a long time together.”

Indeed, the Brea team is a close-knit bunch.

“We all kid each other,” Cardenas said. “It’s kind of playful--we pick on each other.

“And she (Caperton) will pick on some players. She isn’t just someone who comes out there and coaches us and then leaves. We get to have fun.”