Poulson Hopes Her Sacrifices Will Pay Off in a Title for Irvine : Division III softball: First baseman has missed social activities to play ball, but her devotion has added to the team’s winning edge.

During spring break of her junior year, Alleah Poulson’s friends went to Spain.

She stayed home and played softball.

When her friends go on their senior trip in a couple of weeks, Poulson will be in Colorado. Playing softball.

It’s a consistent pattern in her life, one that has been good and bad for the Irvine first baseman, who leads her second-seeded team (26-5) into today’s Southern Section Division III softball final against Laguna Hills at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park.

It is called sacrifice, and she has made the sacrifice for excellence.

Poulson will compete over the summer at the Olympic Festival, and in the fall she will attend national power UCLA on an athletic scholarship.

But there was a price tag attached.

“I gave up a lot of stuff for softball,” Poulson said. “There are certain things, little things, that my friends could always go out and do whenever I had games.

“(But) it’s like winning and being successful in softball makes it all worthwhile for what I give up.”

Poulson’s social life is more limited than that of her friends, six of whom she said they don’t fully appreciate what softball means to her and how exciting it is for her to be named, for example, to the Olympic Festival team. They aren’t athletes. Maybe they can’t understand.

They try to schedule activities around Poulson’s softball commitments, but it doesn’t always work. And she doesn’t have time to pursue all her interests beyond softball.

She played high school volleyball her freshman and sophomore years, but coaches told her, “ ‘If I wanted to be really good, I had to play club,’ and I liked softball.”

So she gave up volleyball.

She has missed other social activities that would make her more well-rounded, activities many students take for granted.

“If I didn’t have a sport, I probably would have gotten more involved in school activities, too, like student government or clubs,” Poulson said. “I just like being involved in something. I like being social.

“It’s the little things that add up. You see your friends going out while you’re out there practicing.”

So this past spring, she put her foot down. She went on vacation.

“One thing I did do is go to Spain instead of play softball,” Poulson said. “I wanted to do something on spring break my junior year, but I had a tournament. It was never considered--’You have softball.’ I’m usually always playing softball on my birthday (June 27). But all the recognition I’m getting makes it worthwhile. My hard work is paying off. My scholarship makes all I gave up less severe.”

The championship game against Laguna Hills will help make the sacrifice seem less severe. It is Poulson’s second section final. She singled in Irvine’s 1-0 victory over Foothill for the Division 4-A title in 1991.

But that was not her team. This one is.

“I think we’ve done better than we expected and a lot of other people expected,” Poulson said. “I want to go out a winner and that’s what I want to be remembered by--going out as a winner. Our (baseball team) just lost (in the semifinals) and they’re disappointed; I want to finish it off in style.

“I didn’t expect to be in the finals, but throughout the season, everyone was coming together and playing really tough. We have a lot of heart, and hopefully we can carry that through to the championship game. We didn’t have any big standout players--we pretty much complemented each other.”

Poulson qualifies as a standout. She is batting .419 with seven home runs and 19 runs batted in. She has scored 22 times. And throughout the season, especially early on, her defense bailed out the Vaqueros, whose left side of the infield was playing out of position. Shortstop Monika Hollstein is a third baseman, and third baseman Shye Nakabayashi had moved from center field. But Irvine was able to share the Sea View League title with Woodbridge.

“(Poulson’s) everything to this team,” Irvine Coach Lisa Baker said. “Offensively and motivation-wise, she gets things going. She’s been the clutch hitter many times, and she’s probably the best defensive player in the county. She’s just got everything. Along with that, she’s got a great attitude.

“You throw her anything and she’ll hit it. Defensively, you throw her anything and she’ll catch it.”

She excels in both facets of the game because she keeps her mind free of distractions.

“If you go up to the plate thinking you’re just going to hit the ball no matter where it’s pitched, you’re able to make adjustments,” Poulson said. “And catching the ball--you can’t be worried about if you’re going to miss it--you just have to know you’re going to catch it.”

Since the playoffs began, the other Vaqueros have matched the confidence of their leader.

“It feels like we’ve stepped up a level,” Poulson said. “We felt like we’d always have a next game during the regular season. Since the playoffs began, it feels like we’ve been more focused, that there’s been a higher intensity level--there’s no tomorrow.

“I like it a lot better.”

It’s a pattern she can live with.