The Sports Informant

When you’re the best team in the nation, it’s hard to lose. The fact that your first loss of the entire year was 19 games into the season and came at the hands of the fourth best team in the entire country is no consolation. Why? Because for champions, consolation is just another word for loser.

The Sheldon High School softball team started its 2009 campaign as perfect as can be. Preseason rankings had the Huskies No. 1 in the United States, a prestigious honor that can make the mighty crumble, and yet Sheldon stuck true to predictions with an 18-0 streak before meeting Archbishop Mitty in the championship game of the Livermore Stampede softball tournament on April 18. Going 19-0 proved too tough.

There’s something mysterious about pressure. It can make giants small and the bravest cowards, and in an instant, turn heroes to fools. Too bad that’s not the case for Sheldon. It just got beat by a better team that day, plain and simple.

Mitty, who beat Sheldon in the game, 5-2, is a Northern California powerhouse every year. It’s off to a 22-0 start already in 2009, en route to another season of demolition. Last season, the team was 23-4-1 overall, posting a 3-0 shutout in the section championship game over Presentation High to earn its fourth straight Central Coast Section division title. It’s hard to top that kind of domination, unless you’ve got someone better than you somewhere else to challenge. Last year, they couldn’t, losing to Sheldon at the Stampede tourney, 0-2. This year, it’s a different story.

Sheldon was the top dog in Northern California. That made it a target for Mitty. Forget national rankings, this was about the home turf, and Sheldon was the closest thing to a challenge Mitty could find. Too bad the Huskies weren’t much of a challenge after all.

Sheldon is led this season by senior pitcher Jolene Henderson, who holds an incredible .28 ERA on the season according to MaxPreps.com. Henderson has been a monster from the mound, a virtual untouchable. In her first 13 games pitched in 2009, she didn’t give up a single run. Overall, before Archbishop Mitty, Henderson gave up one run in a total of 18 games pitched.

It wasn’t that Henderson was off in her performance, although getting rocked for four runs in the first inning like she did against Mitty can throw off anyone’s game, it was that Archbishop Mitty came to play. Champions know how to beat the best, and stepping onto the field with Sheldon was do-or-die for the real success of Mitty’s season. Unfortunately, it was for Sheldon’s, too. With no state playoffs or even Northern California regionals to square off against each other once again, this was an opportunity to claim the title as the best. That can create an energy amongst an underdog that can be unmatched by anything but a phenomenal performance by the expected winner. Sheldon didn’t come out with its end of that. Mitty more than did.

Henderson calmed down after the first inning, and the Huskies evenly played Mitty the rest of the game 1-1. Obviously, it wasn’t enough.

A lot of writers called the game an upset. I disagree. An upset would have been 2-10 Florin beating the Huskies three days later. The score of that game? Sheldon won, 14-1.

Two amazing teams steps stepped on the field to battle on April 18. The better team got to stay undefeated and climb the national rankings. That was Archbishop Mitty.

Sheldon’s still the best team in Sacramento, the second best team in Northern California and will be in the top five in the country when the new rankings are announced. There’s no shame in that. When they finish the rest of the season with a clean sweep of all league and section opponents they face, the Huskies will once again prove just how mighty they are. They should be proud of what they’ve accomplished and treasured locally by fans and media for a dream season as one of Sacramento’s best sports stories. These players deserve credit by the truckloads, praise from anyone who has seen them play and raised eyebrows from college scouts everywhere.

Unfortunately, though, they still aren’t the best team around. This season, because of one stinking game that quietly meant more than all the others, the Huskies will have to settle just for being second best.