HIGH SCHOOL PLAYOFF ROUNDUP : Hart Returns to Haunt Glendale in Softball, 8-1

Same place, same date, same result.

Hart High’s softball team capitalized on seven Glendale errors to beat the Dynamiters, 8-1, Thursday in a first-round game of the Southern Section 4-A Division playoffs at Newhall Park.

Exactly one year ago--May 21--Hart eliminated Glendale in the second round of the playoffs. There was no atonement for the Dynamiters in 1992.

Glendale’s error-plagued defense helped open the door for Hart (19-7) as early as the second inning.

“We put the ball in play and that’s the name of our game,” Hart Coach Al Weil said. “And then we came up with the big hits when we needed them.”

Hart’s Kim Neighbors reached on a dropped infield popup to lead off the second and scored two batters later on an error for a 1-0 lead. Neighbors, who went three for four, proved to be Glendale’s biggest problem in the next two innings. Her two-run double in the third drove in Jamie Dean and Cindy Abrams and gave the Indians a 4-0 lead.

One inning later with the bases loaded, Neighbors broke the game open with a three-run single to right field that gave the Indians a 7-0 lead.

Not even Glendale’s Jenny Dalton, the Southern Section’s most prolific home run hitter with 28, could help the Dynamiters (16-7).

Dalton, who has signed a letter of intent with second-ranked Arizona, tried in vain to tie the state record of 29.

With her team trailing 8-0 in the sixth--and runners at first and second with two out--Dalton’s only thought was home run.

“I figured it was my last (high school) at-bat,” Dalton said. “I might as well go for the home run.”

On a 3-and-1 pitch, Dalton popped up in foul territory to shortstop Lisa Kelley, and Dalton was history.