All-Star Win Is Redemption for Miller

Batting leadoff this season for Valencia, Michelle Miller drove home only 10 runs despite batting .505.

But the Louisville-bound outfielder drove in three runs in the eighth inning Tuesday at Cal State Fullerton, giving the North a 4-2 victory in the North-South all-star game.

“It’s a great honor to be in a game like this,” Miller said. “Like any game, you want it to end like that. It’s like a dream come true.”

It eased the anguish of the last game Miller played, a 23-inning, 1-0 loss in the playoffs to Kennedy despite Miller’s six-for-10 performance.

“It was very important to play another game because I didn’t want to end my season with a loss,” Miller said.

Against Foothill’s Courtney Fossatti and Fountain Valley’s Jackie Brown, Miller went one for three with a sacrifice bunt. A left-handed batter, Miller sliced a Brown offering into the left-field corner with two outs to score Whittier Christian’s Jennifer Benavidez, Troy’s Molly McMasters and Rosary’s Dana Kenney with the deciding runs.

Miller was the North’s most valuable player, and Fossatti the MVP of the South after delivering a two-run triple in the fifth inning. The game was scheduled for eight innings.

Another player happy to get another game under her belt was Sonora’s Carrie Wisen, who called her last official high school game, a 6-0 loss in the section semifinals to El Modena, “embarrassing.” Wisen was the starting pitcher Tuesday and was perfect in her three innings against a South lineup that included Fossatti, Erin Mobley and Kristen Mann from Foothill, and Erin Wallace from Aliso Niguel.

“You’re facing the best hitters in the county, the state even,” said Wisen, who will attend Notre Dame. “I was very surprised to get through the lineup like that.”

Michelle Whiteman followed Wisen, and Orange Lutheran’s Laura Miklos--whose team won Orange County’s only section title on Saturday--pitched the last two innings to get the victory.