Seniors Lead the Way for Norman Softball

Seniors on the Beverly Hills High softball team know by now that winning isn't everything.

During the last three seasons they've missed the playoffs, unable to place in the top half of the six-team Ocean League.

But for co-captains Emily Rosen and Annie Math, softball is more about playing your best, enjoying the game and helping develop the young players who represent the future of the team.

“We’re a close team. We have fun together,” said Rosen, a pitcher who has earned all-league honors not just in softball, but in volleyball and soccer as well. “It’s not our first sport, most of us. We just play because we’re athletes. We’re competitive and we’ll just get into the game because of that."

The team stays close off the diamond as well. Coach Len Mitchell said that a recent group outing to a bowling alley was the first  time he’d gone bowling with any of his squads in his 22 years of coaching softball at BHHS.

“We’re just a good group of girls. We get along well,” said senior Jackie Pop, a three-year starter at second base. “We work well together and we try hard. I think we have a good attitude."

Rosen, Math, Pop and two other seniors—catcher Tamar Rotstein and first baseman Lisa Kliman—have been playing together since they were in T-ball. It’s no wonder, then, that Mitchell depends on his seniors to carry the load and help his youthful newcomers mature. 

“There’s talent,” Math, the starting third baseman, said of her young teammates. “Some of them haven’t played softball before high school so they don’t even know the rules.”

The 12-player varsity roster includes a freshman and three sophomores, and the 16-player junior varsity team is largely inexperienced.

“Just the flow of the game, that’s what they need to learn,” Rosen said of her younger teammates.

The Normans had a tough time in nonleague play at the start of the season, losing five of their first seven games. But all that will be forgotten March 24 when they play their league opener, a 3:15 p.m. home game against rival Culver City. The Centaurs were third in the Ocean League last year with a 7-3 record, 16-9 overall. The Normans went 4-6 in the league and 10-13 overall.

“Those kids have been playing for years together, but we’re going to go out there and see what happens. You never know,” Mitchell said, sitting in the dugout after a recent 11-2 nonleague loss to Archer. “We tend to usually play better at home in our little friendly confines over here, but it wasn’t the case today.”

Rosen said she and her teammates appreciate their coach’s knowledge, experience and dedication to the sport.

“He’s very organized and he has the game down," Rosen said. "He knows the game. He’s seen a lot.”

But Mitchell, who teaches math at the high school, hasn’t seen a winning season since 2007 when the Normans went 15-10 overall and 6-4 in the Ocean League. But with 16 players on the JV team, Mitchell is optimistic about the future. And, as always, he is excited about the game.

“I want to teach these kids how to play softball the right way," he said. "I want to make sure they know how to play it the right way because, to me, when you know anything the right way, it’s more fun.”

Rotstein, the senior catcher, has been playing the game the right way from the start of the season. Through the Normans’ first six games, she has hit .412 with a team-leading 10 RBIs (her closest teammate has four), and a double and two triples.

Rosen, who plans to play volleyball at a NCAA Division III school next year, is off to a hot start as well. She’s hitting a team-high .538. Math is averaging .421 with two doubles and a triple so far while junior centerfielder Lexi Silbiger is hitting .357.

Other players on the varsity roster include senior outfielder Ore Ezer, junior outfielder Violet Shorman, sophomore shortstop Kylie Colvin, sophomore infielder Heidi Hart, sophomore catcher Melissa Kolko and freshman outfielder Shayna Stein.