It’s easy to say the Pleasanton Lady Eagles will go as far as pitcher Emma Garcia can take them.

The junior right-hander will be on the mound Friday at Kerrville when the Lady Eagles take on the Lampasas girls in the area round of the state’s Class 3A softball playoffs. It will be a one-game suddendeath playoff.

District champion Pleasanton got a bye in the first round and was declared bi-district champion. Now the Eagles face a Lampasas team that also has an outstanding pitcher and advanced to the second round by eliminating the Wimberley girls in their bidistrict match-up.

After looking at the final softball statistics in the San Antonio Express-News Garcia is the statistical leader in two key pitching categories and third in another. She leads all San Antonio and area pitchers in earned runs allowed per inning with a mark of 0.41 and also is tops in strikeouts in the San Antonio area with 299. Her 19 wins this season place her third in that category.

So, it’s easy to see that Pleasanton will rely heavily on Garcia when they take on the Lady Badgers Friday. According to Ted DeVilbiss, who toils as the Eagles statistician, the “Eagles can win if they hit the ball.” In their last game, a non-district affair against Marion, the Lady Eagles had to go into extra innings to win the game, 1-0 even though they out-hit the Lady Bulldogs, 7-2. Pleasanton won the game when Garcia walked, stole second and scored on Kelsie Wiggins base hit.

It would be nice to see the Lady Eagles win in a rout but don’t expect it. I just watched video of Lampasas pitcher Kady Crow throwing to the plate and she reminds me very much of Garcia–with a lot of speed on her fastball.

The game Friday has a 7:00 p.m. start.

SPURS –

I read in the San Antonio newspaper on Monday that Tim Duncan had staged a dunking clinic for Manu Ginobili after the Spurs’ superstar missed a dunk against the Utah Jazz on Sunday. Duncan and most of the other Spurs are very good at poking fun at each other when things like that happen and I think that’s great. But I hope they get a little more serious about Game 2 on Wednesday.

The fact is that I watched Game 1 very nervously due to the fact that San Antonio labored to put away a Jazz team that wouldn’t quit. That happened because the Spurs looked rusty and Ginobili in particular had some uncharacteristic turnovers and made bad passes. The Spurs also missed too many easy shots that allowed Utah to stay in the game.

San Antonio also lost backup center Tiago Splitter to a wrist injury and now it’s uncertain if he’ll play tonight at the AT&T Center. The center position is key for San Antonio and we can’t afford to lose any more of our big men.