Clear Lake High School softball coach Gary Pickle is certainly enjoying the moment. Why not?
On May 26, the Cardinals capped a perfect season, upsetting No. 1 seed St. Patrick/St. Vincent of Vallejo 2-1 in the North Coast Section Class A championship game on the Bruins” homefield.
About a week later, the 27-0 Cardinals learned they also had attained the best grade point average in the section along with Justin-Siena High School of Napa (3.40) to earn Scholastic Championship Team honors.
And on Monday, Pickle confirmed that Cal-Hi Sports had ranked Clear Lake No. 2 its final Division IV state poll, one spot behind Orestimba High School of Newman (26-0).
Orestimba wrapped up its season a week before Clear Lake and its 26-0 record was the best in state history in Division IV & until Clear Lake beat St. Patrick/St. Vincent a week later to end up 27-0. So the Cardinals, in addition to going undefeated, now hold the state”s all-time best record in Division IV.
“I”m pretty excited about that,” said Pickle, who is preparing for his summer league season. “I won”t be undefeated very much longer,” Pickle joked. “We have a lot of young players and they”re still learning.”
Pickle has worked with players as young as the fifth grade in the last couple of weeks. His summer league squad includes returning varsity players and middle school players, the stars of future Clear Lake teams.
Clear Lake”s thrilling run through the playoffs couldn”t have come at a better time considering the varsity baseball team”s forfeiture of a share of the North Central League I South title and an automatic playoff berth.
Given that the Class A baseball field was about as weak as the softball field was strong this season, the Cardinals might have been celebrating two section championships instead of one.
But we”ll never know.
Kudos to this parent
Each year the Record-Bee honors male and female athletes of the year as well as coaches of the year in boys” and girls” sports and will do so again in a few weeks. While we don”t have an award for a parent volunteer of the year, we should, especially this year.
If the newspaper did have such an award, that parent would be Tina Sanderson, who can always find a job in sports photography if she ever feels so inclined.
Sanderson”s photographs of the Clear Lake softball team were outstanding, the best sports photography I”ve seen submitted by a parent in my nearly 23 years here at the Record-Bee. The action shots were superb and Sanderson avoided the trap many parents fall into & taking photographs only of their own kids. Sanderson spread around the wealth, getting shots of all the team”s players, starters and reserves. In fact, I had to remind her one time that it was OK to submit photos of her two daughters on the team, senior Haley and freshman Liz.
The bad news is that Haley graduates on Friday. The good news is that Liz is around for three more seasons, so hopefully the flow of pictures continues to the Record-Bee whether I”m here or not. They”re great.
All-County teams
The Record-Bee will release its All-County softball and baseball teams in the next few days. Those teams are selected based on a variety of criteria, including stats submitted by coaches, All-League teams and comments from coaches during the season. However, the final selections are those of the Record-Bee. Picking the softball team was the hardest of all because there were more county players named to the All-League teams than there are spots available on the All-County teams.
Respect the streak
How”s this for a coincidence? The Clear Lake softball team goes 27-0 and the starting battery for that team is pitcher Brittany Rumfelt, No. 27, and catcher Julie Jackson, No. 00.
And not that I”m superstitious or anything, but as Kevin Costner said in the baseball classic Bull Durham, “Respect the streak.” And I did. In all my years at the Record-Bee I”ve never ridden a team bus and I”ve traveled to only a handful of road games in a team van, so few I could count them on one hand.
As far as softball goes, I”ve traveled on a team van twice, both times with Clear Lake, both times to Vallejo for playoff games against St. Patrick/St. Vincent. The Cardinals won both times, this season and in 2004, when the Cardinals beat the Bruins in a first-round game.
I take no credit at all for the Cardinals” 2-1 victory on May 26, but I did “respect the streak.”
n Fall section returning
The Record-Bee had originally shelved a fall sports section for 2007 but it”s now back on the schedule, though it won”t be the same as in past seasons. And, for that matter, the Record-Bee is looking into revising its Football Friday page.
Thanks for the input
To those of you who have e-mailed me over the course of the now complete 2006-07 sports season, whether it was to praise or complain or just inform, I thank you for the input. The best journalism teacher I ever had once told me on day one of class, probably within the first five minutes of that class, that you will never please everyone as a reporter regardless of how well you do your job.
Boy, was he right.
