By Mark Seraydarian

After beating Nogales in a CIF wild card game to qualify into the Division IV CIF main draw, the girls’ softball team could not defeat Pomona Catholic, losing a tight one 9-8.  The loss brought to an end a 17-12 season in which the girls went 7-3 in league, a turnaround of last year’s 3-7 league record.
Since the Wolverines finished third in the Mission League behind Chaminade and Alemany, the girls had to play the wild card game.

“We were frustrated we had to play a wild card game in the first place, but the win was still nice,” Laurie Schleimer ’08 said about the Nogales game.

Once in the CIF tournament, the Wolverine offense out-hit Pomona Catholic 12-10 but could not overcome the two errors committed on defense and the nine walks handed out by the pitching. 
Errors and walks were the two areas that plagued the team for the entire season, Head Coach Terry Elledge said.

The offense was a bright spot on an otherwise sad day, especially for the seniors for whom it was the last of their Harvard-Westlake softball careers.  Julie Fernandez  ’08 reached base on all four plate appearances and scored two runs.  Zara Louy ’07 drove in three runs and Emma Katz ’09 knocked in two more.

“We hit the ball really well,” Schleimer said. “But we just got unlucky.  A lot of our balls went right to their fielders and their hits found the gaps.”

A 5-3 lead in the second inning disappeared quickly and the girls could not quite reach the nine runs scored by their Pomona Catholic adversaries.

The high scoring affair was a reversal of the wild-card game against Nogales, a low-scoring 2-0 victory.  Christina Cavanaugh ’10 pitched a complete game gem, shutting out Nogales on just two hits.  She did, however, walk five but struck out six batters. Elisabeth Smith ’07 and Tracy Thompson ’07 drove in the only two runs of the game.