Madison Harris makes the catch to make the tag at third base in a recent game. Pahranagat Valley beat Moapa Valley 12-4 on Tuesday and is now on a weekend road trip for a three game set on the California coast.
This weekend, for the first time, the Pahranagat Valley High School softball team will play softball on the California coast.
However, this weekend they have a single game today at Carpinteria High, then a double-header at Channel Islands High in Ventura against Channel Island (4-6) and Foothill Tech (3-7).
Coach Mike Sparrow said the opportunity came last fall when the Panther football team played Thacher Academy in Ojai, Calif.. There PVHS athletic director Brad Loveday got to talking with a man from Cate School in Ventura, who was scouting the Thacher football team, and discussed the possibility of playing baseball with Loveday’s baseball team in the spring.
Sparrow said he later got a call from Cate School about arranging a softball game, which he agreed to do. In the meantime, he also contacted Carpinteria about playing softball with them the same weekend and arranged dates in early April.
Sometime later however, Sparrow said the Cate School called and cancelled the game because of not being able to field a team this year. So he scheduled another game with Carpinteria High the same weekend, and later was able to add games with Channel Islands and Foothill Tech teams that had been on the Cate School schedule.
Sparrow said he plans to take the kids to visit the beach near Ventura, and perhaps Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which is within sight of the famous Hollywood sign, and not far from the Rose Bowl stadium. However, since the games are on the coast, he doubted the team would do anything more than visit the observatory. “It will make a nice trip for the kids,” he said.
The next home game is April 5 with Virgin Valley and the first home league game is a two-game set with Sandy Valley in Alamo April 14.
On Tuesday this week, in Alamo, Ashlyn Wadsworth tossed a five-hitter with seven strikeouts as the Panthers scored in every inning except one to defeated the Moapa Valley Pirates 12-4
Madison Harris was 3-for-5 with an RBI for Pahranagat Valley (4-2), which got two RBIs apiece from Madalyn Taylor and Allyse Frehner.
Aria Messer had a two-run single for Moapa Valley (7-7) in the only meeting of the teams this season.
