Pressure Is Magnified for Seniors Going Into Playoffs

Senior year. Single elimination. Five games to win it all. Pressure?

Marina’s Marcy Crouch, who has won three soccer titles and one in softball, knows better than anyone.

“I think going in and not knowing what practice is going to be your last practice, what game is going to be your last game, it puts a lot of pressure on you to work hard to get to the next game,” she said.

That’s why the seniors who take part in the Southern Section softball playoffs that begin Friday will take these games so seriously. They are less than a month from graduating, and what they do in their last game will stay with them forever.

Crouch’s dad, Cary, has coached Laguna Hills to two section titles, and he lost another in the final.

“You’ll always remember the game you lose whether it’s in the first round or last,” he said. “There are very few who go out with a win. For any team that’s decent, that final game is the one you play ‘what if?’ with--’What if we did this, what if we did that?’ Very few teams go out of the playoffs thinking, ‘We just weren’t very good and the other team was better than us.’ Most close softball games are going to be determined by a mistake.”

Which makes the memory even harsher. Ten, 20 years from now, the outcome of games played over the next three weeks will be the topic of conversation.

It can’t be helped.

Foothill Coach Joe Gonzalez’s daughter, Leeann, played softball for him. The Knights lost a championship game in 1991 and won one in ‘92, her senior year. He has seen its impact as a father and a coach.

“There’s a lot attached to your senior year,” Joe Gonzalez said. “That’s ‘your team,’ and that’s what you remember.”

This year, Foothill is shortstop Michelle Churnock’s team. She has already won a section title--during her freshman year--with teammates Carley Rutledge and Dawn Davidson.

“We sit around now and talk about when we won, but it’s getting a little old,” Churnock said. “I want to talk about something new. Being our last year, I think it will be one of our most memorable experiences--winning or losing, but we don’t like to talk about that. Sitting around the punch bowl 10 years from now at a class reunion, yeah, we’ll be talking about winning the championship or talking about the game we lost.”

Michelle Schneider, Los Alamitos shortstop, isn’t used to finishing second and admits that not getting what you want can be tough; after winning four league titles in tennis, two in soccer and three in softball, this softball season marked the first time her team had not won a league championship--the Griffins tied for second place in the Sunset League.

“League’s not like CIF, it’s not that big of a deal,” she said, “but not being in the No. 1 spot kind of makes me feel like it’s a bigger deal now.”

In her sophomore year, Los Alamitos’ season ended with a 1-0 loss to Simi Valley in the title game. There were no mistakes that made the difference. This was just one good team beating another.

Schneider, with two years ahead of her, found reasons for optimism.

“Right after that game, people were sad about it and I really believed we could do it again,” Schneider said. “I know the seniors were upset about it, but I was excited about having the opportunity to play there, and excited about having a chance to do it again the next year and come out a champion. On the bus ride home, I said, ‘There’s always nextyear.’ ”

“Next year” was last year, and Los Alamitos was the second-seeded team in the division, but was upset by Foothill in the quarterfinals. Now, Schneider’s luxury of another season is gone.

During Lisa Pitt’s freshman year, Kennedy was a wild-card entry that lost in the semifinals. As a sophomore, her team had only two losses, then lost in the first round. Last year, the Irish finished the regular season 20-5-1, but lost in the second round. Kennedy has won 85 games in Pitt’s four years, and has won 16 of its last 18 games after a 2-6 start.

“We had a great team last year and for us to lose--everyone on the team thought we would take it last year; we had high hopes,” Pitt said. “You can remember the players, you can remember the funny things, but being your last year, you’re thinking, ‘This is the last CIF tournament I’m ever going to be in.’ It’s the last time you’re going to be on the team with the people you grew up with.”

Said Churnock: “I look back at last year . . . they’ll show [on cable television] some errors and it just kills me--a little more concentration at that time could have been the key. But to win it would be the greatest thing as a senior leaving--that would be the thing I would remember about high school. And of course, the other side of the story is if we lost.”

And of course, somebody has to.