Archive for May, 2010

Sports Dashboards Salutes: Camille Gaito

Friday, May 28th, 2010 by

Camille Gaito delivering a pitch for her UCSD team.

The numbers don’t lie: Camille Gaito is among the elite college softball pitchers in the nation, but that’s not the only reason Sports Dashboards salutes her.

The numbers are a good place to start. Gaito ended her season with a 0.96 earned run average while pitching for the University of California at San Diego. The Tritons play in NCAA Division II as a member of the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

How good is 0.96? It’s third in the nation. Of the 300 pitchers that the NCAA tracked who pitched more than 100 innings this season in Division II, only two pitchers recorded lower numbers. For those of you into that kind of metric, it means that she is in the 100th percentile. She is among the creme de la creme. A pitcher nonpareil.

This season, she finished with an 18-10 win-loss record and her team was ranked 10th among all colleges competing in the Western Region.

The thing is, Camille Gaito is only a sophomore. When you’re already at the top, what more is there to strive for? Well, there are some individual honors that have eluded her and there are plenty of team accomplishments that will have to wait for next season.

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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball, SportsDashboards Salutes | 2 Comments »

Mill Valley Wins MGS Seniors All-Star Tournament

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 by

The Mill Valley All-Stars nipped the San Anselmo All-Stars 12-11 in extra innings to win the Marin Girls Softball Seniors All-Star Tournament.

The Seniors are seventh and eighth graders and each team is a collection of the best players from several teams competing within their individual leagues.

The championship game was an exciting contest, with twists and turns to delight the fans of both teams. But one of the most interesting things about it was that it didn’t figure to be this compelling.

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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball | 1 Comment »

Novato wins Marin Girls Softball Majors All-Star Tournament

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 by

The Novato All-Stars edged the San Rafael All-Stars 3-2 to earn the Marin Girls Softball Majors All-Stars Tournament championship.

Majors teams consist of girls in the fifth and sixth grades. The all-star teams are formed from the best players within each league.

The level of play in the semifinals and championship game belied the ages of the players involved. These girls definitely got game.

In the championship game, Novato scored single runs in the middle innings to take a 2-0 lead. Starting pitcher Dixie Thompson benefited from her battery mate, catcher Samantha Tong, who threw out two would-be base stealers in the early innings to keep San Rafael in check.

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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball | 4 Comments »

SportsDashboards salutes Marin Girls Softball

Thursday, May 6th, 2010 by

The values of participating in youth sport groups are well known. A non-comprehensive list would include such things as developing cooperative skills through teamwork, dealing with the highs of winning and the lows of losing, learning sportsmanship skills, and experiencing camaraderie with teammates, coaches and family. Oh yeah, having fun comes in there pretty high as well. Some organizations are better at one facet of youth sports than others. But every kid benefits to some degree by participating.

Then there’s that more prominent facet of any sports program: the development of skills in the chosen sport. Some organizations misplace their emphasis, placing it on winning, rather than skills development.

That’s not the case with the teams that comprise the Marin Girls Softball League. Obviously, every team tries to win each time they take the field. But the emphasis is on skills development and the less tangible values of being a part of something special.

Exhibit 1 for this fact was the recent showdown between Marin County Athletic League powerhouses, Redwood and Tamalpais. The two high schools entered the game knowing that the winner would be tied with San Marin atop the MCAL softball standings. That’s enough drama right there.

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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball, SportsDashboards Salutes | No Comments »

An Olympic Gold Medalist on the value of good coaching

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by

Jennifer Azzi is an Olympic Gold Medal winner while playing for the 1996 U.S. women’s basketball team. She was also a lynchpin of a Stanford team that won an NCAA championship and she played professional basketball in the WNBA.

She attributes her success to a string of great coaches she trained under from the time she was 6 years old.

Her life speaks to the sincerity of those sentiments. She’s become a member of the Advisory Board for the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA). She offers basketball camps in the San Francisco Bay area. She’ll also apply her experience next year as the new coach of the University of San Francisco women’s basketball team.

In this video, she recounts her experiences to winners of the PCA Double Gold award.

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Posted in Coaching | 1 Comment »