Marymount Softball Thinking Defense First

Heading into the final week of the regular season, the Marymount High School softball team is right where it hoped to be--at the top of the standings. 

The Sailors (12-9 overall, 4-2 in league) are tied for first place with Marlborough and each school has two games remaining. Marymount hosts Notre Dame Academy on Tuesday and Immaculate Heart on Thursday, both at 3:30 p.m. at .  

Marlborough (12-5, 4-2) finishes with road games against Notre Dame Academy on Wednesday and Ramona Convent on Thursday. 

Marymount beat Notre Dame Academy 5-1 and lost to Immaculate Heart in the first round of league play. The Sailors are coming off a busy week in which they lost to Marlborough 5-3, beat Ramona Convent 8-4, then split a pair of games Saturday--beating Wilmington Banning 7-3 and losing to South Torrance 6-1.

"We're still in first place with a week to go, so it's in our hands," Sailors Coach said. "I believe we have two of the best pitchers in the state--both girls can win any game they pitch."

Clark is referring to senior co-captain and junior , who are leading the league in earned run average and strikeouts. 

Senior shortstop and co-captain , who is headed to the University of Iowa on a full scholarship, is a league Most Valuable Player candidate and is batting .633 with an .867 slugging percentage. 

"Megan [Blank] is playing great and Shannon [O'Neill] is almost equal to Megan with her hitting," Clark assessed. "Both are left-handed slappers with great speed and they get a lot of stolen bases and force a lot of errors trying to steal."

Marymount's weakness this season has been shoddy defense and lack of hitting, both products of the Sailors' inexperience. 

"I've always had good hitters in my 20+ years coaching travelball and high school, but this year the inexperience shows," Clark admitted. "The three travelball players know what to do on defense, but the other six players are still learning."

Marymount was ranked No. 8 in last week's , two spots ahead of league rival Marlborough. The Sailors lost to La Salle in the Division 6 final last season and beat La Salle in the Division 6 final the year before that.

Clark hopes Marymount's tough nonleague schedule will help prepare the Sailors for a higher playoff division. First things first, though, and defending their league title is priority No. 1.

"Our pitchers will keep us in games, we just have to find more consistency on offense," Clark said. "If can do that, and make the plays we should make on defense, we can go a long way."