She’s Twice Blessed : Greathouse Is Better Than Good in Two Sports for Buena

If you forced Nicole Greathouse, Buena High’s two-sport standout, to choose between softball and basketball, she would pick basketball.

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“It’s just more exciting,” she said. “It’s faster.”

Sure, the softball games Greathouse pitches are boring.

First inning: Groundout. Groundout. Strikeout.

Second: Strikeout. Groundout. Strikeout.

Third: Groundout. Strikeout. Groundout.

And so on.

You can see why opposing hitters, who have been at the wrong end of Greathouse no-hitters six times in 1 1/2 seasons, probably wish she would give up softball right now. One coach thinks she could at least give up high school softball.

“She could pitch Division I probably next year, probably this year,” Camarillo Coach Darwin Tolzin said of the sophomore. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Greathouse is 6-1 with three no-hitters this season. In 47 innings, she has given up 12 hits and no earned runs. She has 59 strikeouts.

But despite the gaudy pitching statistics, Greathouse is as accomplished at basketball.

A 6-foot-1 center, she made the All-Southern Section Division I team last season. She led the Bulldogs in scoring (12.6 points per game), rebounding (9.3) and blocked shots with 43 in 26 games.

“She was very athletic to begin with,” Buena girls’ basketball Coach Joe Vaughan said. “She’s very agile for her size, she moves well and she is very strong.”

Although college is still two years away, Greathouse says she would like to find a school where she can play both sports. That combination seems unlikely, though, because the seasons overlap.

“If I went to school and they made me choose, then I would choose basketball,” she said. “But I wouldn’t like to be put in that position. It’s such a hard decision because I have been playing both for all my life and I’d feel kind of empty without one.”

Ventura softball Coach Felix Cortez, who has also coached boys’ and girls’ basketball at Ventura, worked with Greathouse in basketball camps and has coached softball against her.

“I think Nicole is probably a natural as far as softball goes,” Cortez said. “I think basketball is her second-best sport but she’s equally great at both.

“Nicole is a great person who is going to succeed at either softball or basketball, whichever she chooses.”

Greathouse has, in a sense, already chosen.

While most top high school softball pitchers spend their summers traveling around the country for club teams, Greathouse spends her summers playing for two club basketball teams. She said she rarely picks up a softball other than during the Buena season.

Which goes back to Cortez’s theory: Greathouse is a natural at softball.

She started pitching when she was 8, with the help of Darrell Adair, her baby sitter’s father.

“He got me started,” Greathouse said. “He’s who’s made me today.”

Greathouse has taken pieces from several coaches. Last Friday she worked out with Don Sarno, the acknowledged guru of college and high school softball pitchers.

Buena Coach Sharon Coggins said she and Sarno were impressed with how minor tinkering could make Greathouse so much better.

“He was just amazed at what she can do,” she said. “Adjust a finger one inch here and half an inch there and she can make a pitch do a bunch of things.

“My eyes were popping out of my head.”

Greathouse throws a curve, a drop and a changeup, but most of her success comes from throwing a riseball as hard as she can--up to 60 m.p.h.--and watching her defense make plays.

“Our defense is awesome,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade them for anybody in the entire world. They are just so good and they all work so well together. All I have to worry about out there is throwing and I know they’ll take care of the rest.”

Hence, the no-hitters.

But Coggins, whose lineup includes three seniors bound for Division I schools next spring, hesitates to heap too much praise on Greathouse.

“There are a lot of people catching the ball and making great defensive plays,” Coggins said. “If not for that, she wouldn’t have the no-hitters.”

Greathouse, not eager for publicity, shrugs off this year’s three no-hitters because of the teams they were against. Dos Pueblos, Santa Barbara and Hueneme have a combined record of 5-14 in league play.

“I would have liked to get a no-hitter against (second-place) San Marcos or a really good team,” she said. “It’s nice throwing a no-hitter but it’s almost easy to get a no-hitter against Santa Barbara. It’s not a knock on Santa Barbara, but I have good defense behind me and I just have to get them to hit the ball where the defense is. It wasn’t that difficult.

“I would love to throw a no-hitter or a one-hitter against a really good team. That would make my day.”