Woodbridge Facing Higher Expectations

Christy Robitaille has been here before, but she and her teammates aren’t sure what to expect this time around.

A year ago, she was the standout pitcher on the Woodbridge softball team that sneaked up on everyone and won a Southern Section Division II championship.

It was a surprising effort because the Warriors struggled to tie Irvine for first place in the Sea View League.

This season, top-seeded Woodbridge, ranked No. 4 in Orange County, isn’t fooling anyone. The Warriors won their league title by three games over runner-up Irvine, marking the 15th consecutive season they have shared at least a piece of the top spot. Woodbridge (25-5) has established itself as the team to beat; it’s a fact that will loom over the Warriors when they take the field at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday against Chino Hills Ayala at Alton Park in a second-round playoff game.

Last season, Robitaille and company went gunning for others. This season, everyone’s taking shots at them.

“Last year, no one expected us to do it,” said Robitaille, who has an 18-4 record. “This year, people are kind of looking out for us. A lot of people know who we are now and they’re going to be after us.”

Woodbridge finds a much deeper division, team by team, this season compared to last.

“Quite frankly, Division II, in terms of depth, is the strongest division going into the playoffs this season,” Warrior Coach Alan Dugard, a six-year veteran, said. “It’s a very tough draw we’re faced with. Sometimes the No. 1 seed ends up with those kinds of things, but there are some very, very tough teams here.”

Woodbridge’s five losses have come against Division I teams, included two to the county’s top-ranked Foothill Knights, and one each to No. 2 Mater Dei, No. 3 Pacifica and No. 5 Huntington Beach.

Friday, Robitaille no-hit Rialto Eisenhower as the Warriors advanced with a 6-0 victory.

On paper the team didn’t figure to challenge again for a section title until 1997. Five starters are sophomores, two are juniors. Then there’s freshmen in the lower-level programs who could start for other teams, Dugard said.

Dugard points to a host of area travel-ball teams as a main reason Woodbridge has done better than most expected this season.

“We’ve gotten incredibly good talent from those teams,” he said. “The secret of success is to get good talent. If you get that, you are going to win ball games.”

Woodbridge is a team in constant motion, creating and manufacturing runs. The team batting average of .272 isn’t bad, but the Warriors have hit only four home runs. They’ve stranded about one baserunner per inning.

Robitaille and sophomore Desiree Stickelmeyer (5-1, 0.77 earned-run average) serve up a lot of ground balls and let their teammates do the rest. Robitaille averages a strikeout per inning and has a 0.38 ERA.

“We have been fielding and hitting well all season, that has been a key,” said junior third baseman Lizzy Lemire, who leads the team in batting average (.391), slugging percentage (.511), on-base average (.485), hits (36) and runs batted in (22).

First baseman Ashley Boone, batting .344, said the Warriors can be their own worst enemies.

“Our weakness is a lack of confidence in ourselves,” she said. “Sometimes we get on a roll, everyone is up, and we can’t be stopped. Other times, I think we get real nervous.”

Mostly, Woodbridge has been on a roll. El Toro figured to give the Warriors a strong challenge for the league title, but the Warriors dispatched the Chargers, 8-0, in their first meeting as Robitaille tossed a two-hitter. The Warriors swept the series by outlasting El Toro in 13-innings, 1-0, on a Robitaille one-hitter.

Dugard knows it’s no easy chore to win back-to-back championships. His game plan? Send his players onto the field and just let them play the best way they know how, he said.

“This team is playing as good as it is going to get,” Dugard said, “so we’ll see.”