Griffin Has Mortifying First in First as West’s All-Stars Fall to East, 7-0

All things considered, pitching aces Sara Griffin of Simi Valley High and Jennifer Gould of El Camino Real would probably rather have had their own teams playing behind them instead of a bunch of senior all-stars.

Fueled by nine hits (four that didn’t leave the infield) and five errors, the East scored a 7-0 victory against Griffin, Gould and the West in the Daily News all-star softball game Wednesday at Cal State Northridge.

Griffin, Cal-Hi Sports state player of the year in 1993, had not given up three runs in an inning during her four-year career.

Call it her farewell remembrance. The East took advantage of extremely slow corners and the inexperience of catcher Brahna Pastorini, who played only one season on the Taft varsity, to score three runs in the first inning on three hits and two passed balls. Pastorini had trouble handling Griffin’s 60 m.p.h. riseball.

Although the all-star game is in the name of fun, it was a bitter pill to swallow for Griffin, who was almost completely limited to pitching “meatballs,” as she called it.

“I take it personally when a team gets three runs off me,” said Griffin, who was 62-6 in four seasons at Simi Valley. “If it was league or (playoffs), I would have been (upset). But, considering we’ve been put together like a collage. . . .”

Glendale’s Darleen Anderson ripped a two-run single up the middle with nobody out to key the East’s three-run first inning. Anderson, who took home the game’s most valuable player trophy, pitched the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, struck out three, allowed two hits and no runs.

The East added three runs in the seventh, taking advantage of three errors and two hits off Gould.

Cindy Sims of Quartz Hill went two for two for the East, then left the game 35 minutes after it started. Sims, class valedictorian, had to hustle back to school to make a graduation speech.