The Live Oak softball team will lace up its cleats and head to Salinas the next two weekends to take part in the Annie Lynch Memorial Circle of Champions Tournament at the Salinas Sports Complex.
The 24-team tournament, hosted by the Acorns, will run today and tomorrow and will continue next Friday with the championship game next Saturday.
Live Oak, led by senior shortstop Taylor Sutton and junior second basemen Sarah Locarnini, expect to fair well in the tournament.
“We have our entire infield returning from last year,” said Acorns’ coach Barry McDonnell. “We’ve been working more on situation plays, more pick-off plays and the fundamentals of defense. These girls are good defensively.”
Though the Acorns are well off on defense, McDonnell still thinks that his girls might be a bit rusty.
“Quite a few of my girls are coming from soccer and basketball,” McDonnell said. “Basketball just finished and a lot of my girls have only been practicing for the last 10 days.”
The Annie Lynch Memorial tournament is in its 17th year. It was started in 1991 as the Circle of Champions tournament with only eight teams participating.
It was renamed in 1998 after Annie Lynch, a long time Morgan Hill resident and mother of a Live Oak softball player, who died of breast cancer.
The tournament will feature high schools from around the Bay Area. Some schools participating include Carlmont, Leigh, Valley Christian, Notre Dame-Belmont, last year’s Central Coast Section Division I champion San Benito and Division III champion Norte Dame-Salinas.
The teams will be divided into six pools and play three games each. The teams with the best record in each pool advance to the Gold Bracket and eventually advance to the finals.
“We want to qualify for the gold bracket,” said McDonnell. “All of the teams competing are really strong. I have a feeling that there will be a lot of one-run games. Some games might come down to a team finishing first or fourth in their bracket.”
Along with Sutton and Locarnini, the Acorns will have some help from senior catcher and third basemen Kelly McDonald, senior centerfielder Sabrina LaCorte and senior pitcher Trisha Guilarte.
“She’s been throwing really hard this off season,” said McDonnell of Gullarte. “She will be one of those pitchers to watch this season.”
The tournament will be the first action that the Acorns have seen this season.
