Pressure Pitcher : Hard-Throwing Ponce Trying to Carry Load for Young Ocean View

It’s no secret. Kathy Ponce is one of the best softball pitchers in the county, probably the hardest throwing, maybe the most intimidating, despite being only 5 feet 4 inches tall.

But the fear doesn’t end with the batter. Ponce has plenty of her own.

Despite her command within the pitcher’s circle, the eight players outside that circle make Ponce’s heart race.

Should she throw her best pitch when she needs a strikeout?

Should she pitch around a batter for fear of giving up two runs instead of one?

Should she try to get the batter to hit the ball on the ground in hopes of a double play?

Too often, the answer is no.

Last year’s strikeout leader is this year’s poster child for worry.

“I feel the pressure a lot,” Ponce said. “That’s all I have is pressure. Pressure from everything. From pitching, from hitting, making sure I do all I can out there.”

It’s self-imposed, she said: “It’s just something that comes along with the game.”

But much of it comes because softball isn’t a one-player game. Unless Ponce is perfect, there’s no guarantee her best pitches will turn into outs on a team that is learning to play defense.

“Teams will exploit our defense--we know that,” Ocean View Coach John Sansone said. “We start four freshmen. We’re a young team and they’ll take advantage of those miscues.”

Because she’s a senior and the team’s dominant player, Ponce admits to taking much of the burden for the team’s success--or failure.

“I don’t want anybody to get on base,” she said flatly. “I feel like if I let someone on base, they’re going to score and it will be my fault. And I don’t want that at all, because that means I let my team down.

“I don’t want anybody to think I’m ticked off at the defense, I just know that we’re still trying to jell.”

It might bother another person even more. Ponce wears a smile as easily as she wears her dried-out leather glove, and she’s not in the habit of pointing fingers.

“If they make an error, I know they didn’t make it on purpose, so I let things go, but it happens,” Ponce said. “Errors are going to happen, especially with young players. We have a brand new defense.

“I try to encourage them, but it’s more important to go out there and be their friend. Our relationship should go beyond the white lines; I would never put anyone down and I don’t. I would never single them out.”

Ocean View, ranked fifth in Orange County, is 7-3-1 and in the middle of the Golden West League race with a freshman shortstop (Lovieanne Jung), third baseman (Cara Vanderhook), center fielder (Janina Miller) and right fielder (Jennifer Wright). The season began with a freshman catcher, Jamie Willson, but senior Tracy Wilkinson has since moved into that spot.

Wilkinson is inexperienced; she has not caught Ponce more than half a dozen times. Because they are learning to work together, there’s trepidation on Ponce’s part when it’s time for a big pitch.

Her best pitch, her strikeout pitch, is a screamer of a rise ball.

“That’s the one pitch I can’t throw when I have runners on base when I need a strikeout most,” she said.

Said Wilkinson, whose status is uncertain after being hit in the face with a foul ball while batting Saturday: “Sometimes we can’t get the job done for her, but she doesn’t let it get to her--that’s what makes her such a great pitcher and also such a great person.”

Even so, Ponce has 91 strikeouts in 65 innings, with an earned-run average of 0.65. Her record is 5-3. She was a Times all-county first-team pitcher last year (17-5, 0.20 ERA, 187 strikeouts in 137 innings) and a second-team pitcher as a sophomore.

Ponce, who is batting .481, will play next year at Arizona State, joining former Ocean View teammate Lisa Dacquisto, the Times player of the year in 1993.

Ponce said she will major in sports medicine, hoping to become a physical therapist.

Actually, she has needed some physical therapy recently. She has yet to pitch a game at 100% because of a groin pull and, later, a sprained ankle, making her performance even more laudable.

“I’m actually surprised by a lot things--that I have as many strikeouts as I do, that I haven’t given up more hits and that we’re doing as well as we are,” Ponce said.

“I didn’t have any real expectations for myself, but I had team expectations this year. I want to win a league championship and, hopefully, a Southern Section (Division II) title and help the team out any way I can.”