Rebecca Lee and Ashley Goodwin are best friends and teammates on the Corona Angels travel ball team and they will be teammates in the future at Ohio State, but they will be on opposing sides when Pacifica and Norco meet in the CIF-SS Division 1 softball semifinals on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. at Norco High.
Lee, a senior first baseman, has had a tremendous season, batting .523 with nine homers and 43 RBI. In the playoffs, she is 7 for 11 with two doubles, three home runs and 10 RBI, helping Pacifica beat El Modena, 7-2, Murrieta Valley of Murrieta, 11-0, and Orange Lutheran, 13-1.
“That’s who I think our real threat is, personally, because Becca is just a star,” Goodwin said of Lee.
Goodwin, a junior second baseman, snapped out of a slump by going 3 for 4 with two homers and five RBI in Norco’s 8-0 quarterfinal victory over Rosary on Thursday.
“She (Goodwin) is a great competitor and it’s going to be a tough game (on Tuesday),” Lee said. “As long as our team keeps playing the way we have been, then I think we can win.”
Is there a rivalry between the two friends?
“Yes, we have a friendly rivalry, bur we are best friends,” Lee said, “so we don’t let our competitiveness get in the way of that.”
Taking a look at the CIF-SS softball playoffs:
•Lee has been red hot for Pacifica, but her teammate, Nicole DeWitt, has been even hotter. The junior third baseman is 9 for 9 with two doubles, three homers, 10 runs and nine RBI in three playoff games.
•The last time Pacifica and Norco met was in the championship game of the Tournament of Champions on March 10, 2012. Norco scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth and held on for a 4-0 victory.
•The Division 1 semifinals feature two Empire League and two Big VIII League teams going against each other with Pacifica at Norco and Yorba Linda at Santiago of Corona. Yorba Linda is in its third year as a varsity program and is making its first appearance in the semifinals.
“This is really exciting because this is the farthest we’ve made it, especially being such a new team,” Mustangs ace Paige von Sprecken said. “It’s really awesome.”
•Santiago is loaded with players that have big game experience. The Sharks beat Canyon, 4-1, to win the Division 1 title in 2011 and they lost to Norco, 4-3, in last year’s Division 1 championship game. San Diego State-bound pitcher Erica Romero started both of those games for Santiago. Romero is 28-5 with a 1.81 ERA and 259 strikeouts in 208.1 innings this season. She also has seven shutouts.
•La Habra and Sunny Hills, which shared the Freeway League championship this season, got bumped up from Division 4 to Division 3 this season and both teams advanced to the Division 3 semifinals. La Habra plays host to fourth-seeded Righetti of Santa Maria and La Serna plays at Sunny Hills on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. Sunny Hills coach Art Jarman and La Habra coach Frank McCarroll both said their teams have played strong nonleague schedules, so they are up to the challenge.
“Both schools from our league can play with anyone,” McCarroll said. “It is all about respect. You earn that with play on the dirt.”
Contact the writer: carias@ocregister.com
