Strange Year for Los Alamitos’ Dolan

LOS ALAMITOS —  Carrie Dolan is living the paradox.

She has had a season to remember. And a season to forget.

Currently, she has reason to remember because it’s not over yet.

Dolan has salvaged a season that has produced anguish and pain, joy and victories. And while doing so, she has helped the Los Alamitos softball team reach Tuesday’s Southern Section Division I semifinals against third-seeded Camarillo.

She is familiar with the paradoxically named Grateful Dead. She should be.

What a looong strange trip it’s been.

She wasn’t suppose to be able to play softball this season. A stress fracture in her right arm prevented her from going out for the team. The way she tells the story, her doctor wouldn’t allow her. So she sought a second opinion, and that doctor told her in early March exercise would be good for her, that circulation would help the arm heal faster.

She joined the team immediately, debuting March 23 for a few innings of relief. Two days later, she pitched a two-hitter against El Dorado, though she was somewhat embarrassed by the unusually high number of rise balls that reached halfway up the backstop.

She continued to get stronger, helping the Griffins (23-3) win the Empire League title.

Dolan’s season seemed a success. But May 21, the day she was supposed to pitch in the premier matchup of the first round of the playoffs, against Garden Grove (which also had 20 victories), she was in an automobile accident.

She suffered a concussion and a sore back. It was difficult watching the game from the dugout--doctor’s orders--but it was humiliating when the parents of the other car’s driver accosted her after the game.

“Every year has been pretty cursed,” Dolan said. “My sophomore year I hurt my back. My junior year I hurt my arm and I got mononucleosis during the playoffs, and when I started pitching over the summer, I fractured the arm completely.”

Coaches wanted to take a wait-and-see approach in her first game after the accident. After all, she endured a four-hour bus ride to Santa Maria, and her back was stiff. Sore back and all, she stepped off the bus and pitched a two-hitter against Righetti.

On Thursday, she threw 195 pitches over 22 innings in a 1-0 victory against second-seeded Marina, a team ranked sixth in the state. She struck out 15, gave up seven hits and walked none. Robyn Yorke, who batted .603 during the regular season, went one for eight.

And now, Los Alamitos--ranked 15th in the state--is on the brink of reaching its first section final.

Dolan is 8-1 with an 0.10 earned-run average. She has 68 strikeouts in 72 1/3 innings, and has walked only one. She has given up 28 hits.

“I haven’t been able to do what I want,” she said. “I’m frustrated that I have to settle for less than 100% . . . It’s been rocky. And I’m just waiting to see how it’s going to end.”

Not surprisingly, she had doubts when the journey began.

“I thought it would take me longer to be ready,” Dolan said.

She is scheduled to compete in the U.S. Olympic Festival in July, and her travel ball coach, the Batbusters’ Gary Haning, considers her one of the county’s two best pitchers--when she’s healthy. But Dolan’s struggle is not to be one of the best in the county, but simply to be good enough. That was the case against Marina.

Thinking back to February, when the team met for the first time and she was an outsider looking in, she couldn’t begin to fathom the good that has transpired this season.

“No way, because my doctor wasn’t going to release me,” Dolan said. “I was happy when I started playing, but I didn’t think I would be very effective. I’m just glad we’ve come this far.”

And there is just a little farther to go for this competitor.

“(Carrie) would have pitched (the day of the accident),” Coach Jami Shannon said. “I think she knows it’s her senior year and she wants to end it on a good note.

“Nothing is better than winning a championship.”