John Stevens - Coach of the Year

  When asked to recount the help she received this season from coach John Stevens, Kaiser High School pitcher Krystel Gabbard said the first thing that came to mind was the yelling.

"He gave it to us straight," Gabbard said. "He helped us a lot attitude-wise. Skill-wise he helped a lot too, but mostly attitude-wise. He helped us talk a lot, just getting our minds in the game more."

And when your audience is a bunch of bickering high school girls, sometimes the best way to give it to them straight is from the top of your lungs. At least that's what the results show: The Cats reached their first-ever CIF-SS softball championship game on June 4 but fell 5-0 to Goleta Dos Pueblos.

As a result, the third-year coach was selected Coach of the Year.

Stevens believes every year is different, which forces him to "feel his way through the season." But 2010-11 was really different. Kaiser's journey to the championship game didn't just make school history; it went farther than any softball program in the Fontana district had gone before.

"It's a big deal for the school, it's a big deal for the district, it's a big deal for the city," he said.

For the coach, something else was different about this season.

Stevens was a successful assistant softball and baseball coach for decades before taking the helm at Kaiser in 2008, but he had to change his style to get the most from an inexperienced team. The Cats had only three seniors on a roster of 19.

Dick Bruich, Kaiser's first head softball coach who brought Stevens with him from Fontana, explained how.

"Spotty (Stevens' long-established nickname) had to learn the difference between being a head coach and being an assistant," Bruich said. "The head coach has to make all the decisions, sometimes be the bad cop, and the assistants sometimes get to be the good cop.

"I think it took him two years to figure out how to be the bad cop."

Sometimes the young Cats squad needed a few cops on the bench.

With so few experienced seniors, Stevens faced the challenge of integrating two freshmen starters among a bevy of first-time varsity players. He went so far as to say no player stood out as a leader.

Stevens likened the occasional squabbles to those of any family.

"My main concern was trying to get them to respect each other on the field and respect themselves and learn what it is to play as a team and leave the individualism out of it," he said. "When it got to be a distraction as far as what we were trying to accomplish, that's when you've got to get 'em motivated."

As Gabbard put it (with impressive brevity): "We're high school girls. There's going to be drama."

A recipe for disaster? Far from it.

Stevens resolved the uncertainty of the Cats' roster by trying a few different lineups during the preseason. That helped explain why they went 3-6 before playing their first Sunkist League game, a 10-0 win over Riverside Norte Vista.

Kaiser improved to 4-0 in league before hosting Bloomington on April 7, a game that proved a critical turning point in the season.

"When we came back to beat Bloomington after being down 7-4 in the fifth inning I said right there, `We've got a shot at this thing now,' " Stevens said. "Then we rattled off seven more wins. We wrapped up league early."

The playoffs, of course, couldn't start without a little adversity.

Outfielder Marisa Deanda, who was averaging nearly an RBI per game, broke her thumb in a collision during outfield drills in practice.

Adding insult to injury, the Cats lost their final three games of the regular season.

"We went into playoffs on a three-game losing streak, but we put it together," he said. "It's hot and cold. The playoffs, you have to have a little luck."

Gabbard stepped up by allowing six earned runs in five playoff games.

She finished the season with a 15-6 record and 2.25 ERA in 140 innings after losing almost all of her sophomore season with tendonitis in her right (pitching) elbow. First baseman Jessalene Contreras got at least one hit in all five playoff games to bring her team-leading batting average to .484.

Stevens, for his part, was loathe to take credit for the Cats' unexpected success.

"I don't have any magic serum, it just happens," he said. "It so happened our girls clicked this year. I enjoyed the ride."