Softball Pitchers Go the Distance, and Beyond, With Proper Mechanics

Last year’s high school softball playoffs got off to a bizarre start for former Los Alamitos pitcher Carrie Dolan.

She suffered a concussion in an automobile accident and didn’t play in the first round.

Four days later, still a little stiff, she pitched seven innings and shut out Santa Maria Righetti, 2-0. That was on a Tuesday.

On Thursday, she pitched 22 innings --179 pitches--in a 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Marina.

No problem.

Dolan pitches underhand, and when you throw underhand, you can throw forever--almost.

She pitched 42 innings--allowing no runs in the first 41--over a 12-day period that ended in the Southern Section championship game. That’s the equivalent of six seven-inning games--428 pitches, total--and it would be absurd for a baseball pitcher to try to match that feat.

But it’s a fairly typical occurrence in softball.

“If you have the right mechanics, you swing the arm, you snap the wrist, you can pitch three, four games a week and not injure the arm as long as you’re in good physical condition,” said Brea-Olinda’s Don Sarno, pitching consultant for the U.S. national team.

Sarno pitched on five national championship teams, has taught pitching for 30 years and was elected to the International Softball Congress Hall of Fame in 1980.

“I’m not saying you want to make a steady diet of throwing five games a week,” he said, “but if your mechanics are correct, you can throw three to five games--a tournament, for instance--without injuring your arm.”

Marcy Crouch pitched at the nationals last summer in the 16-and-under division for the Outlaws. During one stretch, she said she pitched 30 innings one day and 20 the next. She had also pitched single games the two previous days.

“Toward the end, you have to change your style; I have to go to more off-speed pitches because I can’t overpower batters,” said Crouch, who pitches for second-ranked Marina. “I’m not throwing as hard but it’s OK. Sometimes I do better toward the end because it’s a more thinking game.

“I get sore every once in a while, but it’s when I haven’t been pitching for a while.”

Said Sarno: “Dolan and Crouch are excellent pitchers, both are in shape; it proves you can do that. That’s why it’s important they develop proper mechanics early on--even before they go into high school.”

Stories such as those of Crouch and Dolan make the tale of Ocean View’s Kathy Ponce mild by comparison: Two weeks ago, she pitched 25 innings over a three-day period--seven, three and 15innings. She threw 165 pitches in a 17-strikeout performance in the last game, against Rosary, the longest performance of her career.

“The last inning, I couldn’t feel my hand,” said Ponce, one of the county’s hardest throwers. “I wanted to finish what I started; I had gone that far, and I was going to finish it.

“I was sore about a day, but that’s pretty usual when you throw really hard and use all the muscles you have. It’s just normal soreness.”

Ponce usually throws between starts, too.

“Even though it’s a much more natural motor movement than the overhand action,” Sarno said, “you can overuse it.”

But it seems only in the most extreme circumstances do softball pitchers have arm problems that rival that of their baseball counterparts.

Arizona, the NCAA’s top-ranked women’s softball program, recruited a freshman pitcher who suffered a stress fracture in her forearm while pitching her club team to the 18-and-under national championship in August, 1992. In the final, her ulnar bone broke completely. Seven months later, she was on the mound again for her high school.

Today, she is 8-1 with a 2.32 earned-run average for the Wildcats.

It’s Carrie Dolan.