Stealth Ends Streak of Futility With Two Titles

For the past couple of years, the Valley-based Southern California Stealth softball club has had a lot in common with the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings: plenty of Big Show appearances and just as many disappointments.

But while the Bills, Broncos and Vikings head into the 1996 football season knowing they are each 0 for 4 in Super Bowls, the Stealth finally put an end to its 0-for-6 futility streak in its quest for a national title.

The 12- and 14-and-under Stealth teams won the club’s first national championships last weekend. One team made it look positively easy, while the other pulled off an amazing comeback through the losers’ bracket to prevail.

The 12-and-under Stealth (57-8-7), coached by Chuck Ferrero, athletic director at Valley College, and Bob Kontra, annihilated the competition in Altamonte Springs, Fla., a suburb of Orlando. The team defeated Diamond Bar’s Tuff-E-Nuff, 4-0, in the championship game Sunday to complete an undefeated seven-game campaign in the double-elimination tournament.

The Stealth defeated its first four opponents by virtue of the mercy rule, wherein if a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five innings, it is declared the winner.

Fresh pitchers seemed to make the difference, Ferrero said. With the rotation of Elena Ferrero of Van Nuys, Christine Wann of Whittier and Lindsey Kontra of Newhall, the 12-and-under champs kept the competition off the bases.

Ferrero and Wann each threw perfect games and Kontra tossed a no-hitter.

All told, the pitchers allowed just nine hits in seven games.

“We knew that when you had to play a bunch of games in a row with only one pitcher, you wouldn’t survive,” Ferrero said. “And everyone knows that no one can touch our pitchers.”

But in Midland, Texas, one pitcher named Maureen LeCocq proved more than enough for the 14-and-under Stealth.

LeCocq, of Chaminade High, pitched 61 1/3 innings, including 31 on Sunday. The sophomore-to-be pitched all but 11 2/3 innings of the tournament. When she wasn’t pitching, she played shortstop.

In 90-plus temperatures, the Stealth endured six games on Sunday--14 hours of softball--to claim the national title in a tournament of 73 teams from across the nation.

“There’s not another kid in the country that could have pitched that sixth game [Sunday],” said Coach Don Harris, who founded the Stealth in 1992.

After winning three games, the Stealth lost to the Orange County Athletics, 5-0, Saturday and dropped into the losers’ bracket, where it beat four of the top six teams in the country. The team posted back-to-back victories over American Pastime of Upland to clinch it.

LeCocq went 9-1 in the tournament and got the decision in every game except the first victory over American Pastime. In that game, she scored the winning run on a double by Tracy Hall for a 2-1 victory.

Sunday started for the Stealth with pregame warmups at 7 a.m. More than 14 hours later, the 14-year-old champs pounded 15 hits in the championship game to beat American Pastime, 8-0, invoking the mercy rule to end their long day.

“It was unbelievable,” Harris said. “I had one person come up to me and say it was an Olympian effort.”

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In Eden Prairie, Minn., the 18-and-under Stealth fell short of its expectations, finishing third out of 73 teams.

The Stealth lost back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday and was eliminated, but the losses didn’t seem to change the view of Coach Wes Goodin.

“We were the best team there, but didn’t come away a winner,” Goodin said. “In some respects we were a little disappointed and other respects we were real happy with third place.”

The Stealth outscored opponents, 17-5, outhit them, 53-25, and made just five errors in eight games.

“We totally dominated,” Goodin said.

But they couldn’t come up with big hits in the final two games.

The other bad news is that first baseman Erika Hanson of Thousand Oaks High suffered a broken bone in her right hand--she’s left-handed--in the third game and missed the rest of the tournament.

The good news is that a third-place finish gives the Stealth an automatic berth in the 18-and-under elite Gold Division national tournament next year. And nine of the girls are eligible to return.

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The Newbury Park Black American Girl AAA All-Stars defeated Lakeside of San Diego, 7-4, Monday in Moreno Valley to claim their fifth consecutive American Girl championship.

Newbury Park, composed of the best players ages 13 to 15 from four teams in the Bobby Sox League in Newbury Park, went undefeated through 11 playoff games and outscored opponents, 33-12.

In the final, Alyson Blum of Newbury Park High allowed seven hits and three walks and struck out eight.

Playoff teams included the all-star teams from Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.

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During the recent Olympics, NBC commentator Ahmad Rashad scoffed that “anyone” could hit a 70-mph fastball in softball, which is the speed at which Olympic gold-medal-game winner Michele Granger routinely throws.

But Rashad, clearly out of his league as a softball authority, should have consulted a mathematician before he made such a ridiculous statement.

Let’s assume a baseball is thrown 90 mph from 60 feet and a softball 70 mph from 40 feet. Given those assumptions, which ball will reach the plate first?

The softball, of course. A baseball will reach the plate in 0.45 seconds, a softball in 0.39.

A softball pitched 70 mph from 40 feet is the equivalent of a 105 mph pitch in baseball.

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The 16-and-under Valley Breeze finished fifth out of 82 teams in the national tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The Valley Breeze, which outscored opponents, 45-17, went 9-2 in the tournament and was eliminated by the Southern California Athletics of Irvine, 3-2.

Saugus High’s Shannon McRoy and Valerie Reyes led the charge. McRoy batted 17 for 35 (.486) with four doubles, and Reyes was 14 for 30 (.467).