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Sports

Glendora Swimming Wins CIF; Glendora Baseball, St. Lucy's Softball Headed to Post Season Play

Summary of sports action for the week of May 9-15, including Glendora High School baseball, Glendora softball and St. Lucy's softball concluding their seasons.

In Glendora Swimming News:  A busy week and weekend of local sports coverage was dominated by at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.

Glendora was led by senior and future Texas Longhorn Gretchen Jaques who claimed two individual victories in the 200 Yard Individual Medley and the 100 Yard Breastroke events. The Tartans had to settle for a second place finish a year ago, but captured the team title this time around by scoring the highest point total in the 50-team field, outscoring second place Walnut by 76 points.

In Glendora High School Baseball news: The defending CIF Champion Tartans (17-6-1, 12-3) concluded their season as Baseline League champions by taking two games from Upland this week.

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Glendora scored 7 runs on 5 hits on Wednesday on the run against Upland, then with 16 hits, 17-12 en route to a fourth straight win.

Even though the Tartans came from behind and recorded a number of dramatic wins during the season, Glendora coach Dan Henley said perhaps the toughest obstacle the team had to overcome was forging its own identity in the wake of last year’s CIF Title run.

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“You wanna forget about last year because this is a focus that these guys have to have, it’s this year and hopefully you hang on to that culture of winning and you hope that that matters to them,” said Henley following Friday’s game. “I’m really individually happy for them because they’ve been able to own something for themselves which is what the 2011 team is all about.”

 Henley added it was satisfying to see some guys in the rotation get some well deserved credit. “We’ve been getting contributions throughout the season from middle of the lineup. They’ve been working as hard as anybody and it’s good to see them have some success.”

 The Tartans, ranked 9th in Division 2 in the final CIF Polls, will find out who they are paired off to play this coming week in the post-season when the playoff pairings are announced later today.

In Glendora Softball News: Following a recent four game skid which started with the Tartans dropping a game 10-3 to Upland on Apr.26, Glendora concluded their 2011 season winning two close games this week.

The Tartans (14-11, 7-8) opened the week with a 3-2 win over Alta Loma then finished with a win over Upland by the same score.

In Tuesday’s win over the visiting Braves, Glendora’s junior pitcher Taylor Langdon, despite an injury, settled down after Alta Loma scored two earl runs in the first inning and struck out five hitters before scoring the game winning hit in the 7th inning.

“I thought the kids battled all day,” said Glendora coach Reese Mitchell following the win on Tuesday, “Taylor came out and she’s not 100 percent, after that first inning she looked really, really good. Her velocity is not there because she doesn’t have the push off of her back foot, but I thought she did a really good job changing speeds, changing location.”

 Mitchell said despite some defensive mistakes, the Tartans made enough defensive plays in key situations. “I think the second inning was key in the game when they loaded the bases with nobody out she induced three ground balls.”

 “Then in the 7th, Erika (Rodgers) had a great at bat, she came off the bench had a great at bat, Brandi (Wilson), she had a really good at bat, then Taylor. We preach the kids hit the ball hard, put the ball in play somewhere, maybe good things happen, and we caught a break.”

 “We hit a few balls hard, there have been times all year when we’ve gotten seven, 8,9 hits but we haven’t scored a whole lot of runs because we’re not driving the ball with people on base.”

 In St Lucy’s Softball News: Despite what can be considered an up and down season, The Regents (13-12,8-7) finished in third place in the Sierra League behind Chino Hills and South Hills by virtue of winning their last two games this week against Claremont.

 Following a 3-1 road win over the Wolfpack on Tuesday, the Regents came home and bested Claremont again 3-2.

St. Lucy’s lefty Danielle O’Toole was once again solid on the mound striking out 9 batters but Regents coach Ryan Nuveman said he wasn’t completely happy with the team’s offensive performance.

 “We committed another three errors today and we had zero earned runs,” said Nuveman.

 With runners on first and third in the second inning, the Regents scored on a bizarre play.

 “It was not by design,” said Nuveman, “The way the catcher threw it down to first base, the first baseman jumped, tried to apply a tag and exaggerated having her back to the field, I said ‘go, go,’ she was standing there, not in any shape to throw and the catcher was halfway down the line, so even if she turned around and threw it home, she would have been safe.”

 The Regents scored two more runs in the 5th inning taking advantage of five Claremont errors and held on for the win, the meaning of which was not lost on Nuveman.

“It was everything, we lose, we’re out, we’re done, we win we’re in, so it was the pivotal game of the season. Chino Hills won and that clinched us third place in the league, and after the season we had it was a surprise, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless.”

St. Lucy’s now awaits the softball playoff pairings to find out who they will play in the first round when the announcement is made later today.

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