Summer Relief : County Prep Stars Come Together to Play Softball Just for Fun of It

They know the pressure from summers past, of competing for national titles and the eye of recruiters. The pressure to perform, the pressure to win, didn’t change once they got their college scholarships. It doesn’t matter where they play, the Pacific 10 or the Big West, the pressure continues.

But at Buckingham Park on the first Saturday in July, while the rest of Orange County makes the most of a long holiday weekend and roots for the good guys in “Independence Day,” women who once starred on local high school diamonds are doing what comes naturally--playing softball.

Teams such as the Smoke--a collection of former travel-ball players--are playing together without having practiced. And there won’t be any practices. That was a condition they set when they formed.

There won’t be any pressure, either.

And they won’t be playing for an Amateur Softball Assn. of America national title in August.

They will, instead, play one month--four tournaments--and have fun.

No matter the cost.

*

A shortstop’s throw from home plate, under a shady tree, Coach Allen Tom delivers a short postgame speech, then players scatter for lunch and an air conditioner. “There’s so much talent here, it’s a cruise,” Tom says, “we’re on automatic.”

One woman remains, slumped in a beach chair under the tree, two games under her belt, another on the way.

Ohio State senior Nicole Paloney, 21, the only player with more than a year of college experience, dines on grapes and pretzels. She graduated from Kennedy High in 1993, with an 11-1 record and the county’s lowest earned-run average. It’s the first summer she has played since.

“I’m playing because I want to,” she says. “Before, it was almost an automatic that I played. In high school ball, you play for a goal--the goal being a scholarship. Now, it’s like I don’t have to play anymore during the summers. Now, it’s like the world’s not going to end if we don’t win.”

On another field, Paloney’s Ohio State teammate, Candace Kollen (Mater Dei), plays for the Rebels, along with 1992 Southern Section player of the year Alison Ward (Woodbridge), and Amanda Peterson (Los Alamitos), both of Northwestern, and Boston College’s Alexis Beckman (El Modena), Big East pitcher of the year. The Wildfire has a couple of 1995 Times Orange County first-team players, Arizona State’s Kathy Ponce (Ocean View), a two-time selection, and Arizona’s Michelle Churnock (Foothill), a three-time pick. The point is, there’s some talent here, just as there will be on Saturday and Sunday when another tournament begins at Buckingham Park.

Churnock, a shortstop who won a section title as a freshman at Foothill, recently won her first College World Series--also as a freshman.

“I thought maybe it would be nice to have a summer off for the first time in five years--hang out, go to the beach,” she said between Wildfire games. “I figured it’s time for a break.”

That’s what this is, a break, despite playing potential back-to-back tripleheaders.

The two hours between the Smoke’s second and third games is welcome relief. The rest of the players, none over 19, return to Paloney’s shade tree, reporting “it was a hundred degrees at Carl’s Jr.”

It presents an ideal opportunity to discuss the various forms of culture and shock that the Southern Californians discover outside the Golden State.

Michigan’s Cathy Davie (Westlake Village Westlake): “Did you see ‘Twister?’ ”

Paloney: “Oh-my-god, I freaked out. I had to drive through Oklahoma to get home.”

Davie: “We had a tornado warning two days after I saw it.”

Conversation eventually turns to the beach, work and long distance phone calls. And things of a more serious softball nature.

“We didn’t have a field,” Los Alamitos’ Michelle Schneider says about Stanford, where Smoke teammate Jennie Foyle (El Modena) also played. “We were traveling to San Jose for practice and home games. We weren’t high on the list of priorities for our athletic department. That was frustrating.”

Equally frustrating, she reveals, is her classwork. She is majoring in human biology, hoping to go to medical school. “It’s difficult,” she says. “Everyone else is studying and I’m playing softball.”

But Paloney has a way of putting a blunt perspective on things when she describes why she’s playing on this team: “To have fun, to work, to be social. Look at all of us; we’re all college players going to good schools. How many of us would be at those schools if it wasn’t for softball? I sure as hell wouldn’t be at Ohio State.”

*

Warming up for their third game of the first day, the morning blahs have worn off Pacific’s Brandee McArthur (Villa Park), UCLA’s Julie Adams (Cypress), Oklahoma State’s Kristy Osborne (La Mirada, Fullerton College) and Schneider; they giggle while playing catch.

As some players discuss the merits of Adams’ boyfriend, Tom warns the dugout this is the same umpire from the first game “and has no strike zone.” In an incredible display of timing, leadoff batter Michelle Cordes (Ventura Buena) of Pacific is immediately called out on a pitch over her head. Apparently, there is a strike zone.

The umpiring at the collegiate level, Ohio State catcher Amy Haug (Glendora St. Lucy’s) says, isn’t as good as she expected.

McArthur, who pitched earlier in the day, has given way to a high school player, Pacifica’s junior Amanda Freed. Freed is on the team because the Smoke needs extra pitching this weekend; Stanford’s Marcy Crouch (Marina) is out because of a severely herniated disk; Ohio State’s Kelli Tom (El Dorado), who missed most of the season because of knee surgery, is still a week away; and Osborne couldn’t find the strike zone in a 2-0 loss in the second game (one strike to the first five batters). Besides, Freed, who plays for Gordon’s Panthers, doesn’t have a tournament and she can use the work. So McArthur, who pitched and played first base for Pacific, is in the outfield, where she will play next year when she’s not pitching.

“I’ll play more outfield this month than I played all last year,” she says. “I didn’t want to play for a top team. I wanted a low-key summer. I just wanted to play with my old teammates I used to play with. If you play with a top team, it can’t be low-key.”

Adams was newcomer of the year in the Pac-10 and third-team All-American while playing third base. “I don’t know what I’m playing next year,” Adams says. “The coaches told me to work a little bit at second base. I work out three days a week in the weight room and on the field to get stronger for next year. You can work out all you want, but you need game situations to maintain that level of play.”

Conversation through the middle innings revolves around softball and related subjects, including the merits of rounding the bases in reverse order after a home run.

“Sometimes, I think about softball as a job while I’m at school,” says Indiana State’s Jackie Anderson (Capistrano Valley). “But out here, it’s different. It’s refreshing.”

“It’s a chance to go, ‘Aaaah,’ ” says Fresno State’s Jennifer Slaney (Los Alamitos). “It’s a relief. It’s a chance to enjoy the sport, and when you go back to where it is pressure, you’re ready for it--it doesn’t kick your butt.”

Meanwhile, the Smoke has the day’s third game in hand, and Paloney, Cordes and Davie (and eventually others) discuss:

* Country music, and break into an Alan Jackson song.

* Lost road trips: “We were supposed to go down to Notre Dame,” Davie says, “but the outfield froze.”

* Fresno State’s new stadium: “It’s cool,” Slaney acknowledges.

* Other stadium attributes: “Purdue’s has funky dirt,” Paloney declares, “and Iowa’s is weird because the foul lines are real long and the fence goes straight across.”

* Uniform peculiarities: “You have those two-tone yellow banana peel uniforms,” Slaney tells Michigan’s Davie, as if she didn’t know.

When the game ends, and Allen Tom is the last member of the Smoke heading out of the dugout, he is asked if someone should stay and scout a game.

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”

*

The next day, in the eight-team single-elimination championship bracket, the Smoke (which qualified second in its pool) runs out of pitching after two games. McArthur threw the first game, Freed the second. McArthur, rather gallantly, says she’ll start the third, and throws the first four innings against an ASA women’s open major team (the highest level), the Riverside Hurricanes, whose average age is 24.

Paloney, who hasn’t pitched in six months and hasn’t pitched from 40 feet (the NCAA distance is 43 feet) in three years, throws the final six innings. After resorting to a tiebreaker in the eighth, both teams score twice. After 10 innings in the sixth game in two days, Tom says his team has had enough.

Hurricanes Coach Mike Roberts says he doesn’t want to flip a coin to determine who wins the title; his preference is to play the game to its conclusion.

Tom throws in the towel--the Smoke forfeits a stalemate in the championship--and is handed a second-place trophy. It’s not worth hurting anyone’s arm, he says.

“I kind of didn’t want to win the tournament because then you can’t do any better,” Tom tells his team. “I think we served notice. The Hurricanes are going to the nationals. We can play with the best. Next week’s game is at 10 a.m. Be here at 9:03.”

There is laughter at the remark.

With that, Tom steps over a couple of players and hands the trophy to Freed--the high school player.