Experience Is Everything at Kennedy : Softball: Coach has won a title. Now she wants her players do the same thing.

LA PALMA — Sue Hall tells a story at practice. In it, she describes what it’s like to win a Southern Section softball championship.

“You can never know what it’s like,” she tells her Kennedy players, “until you win one yourself.”

She flashes her championship ring before them. It’s from 1988, the year Kennedy beat La Mirada for the Division 3-A title.

“I want you all to experience that feeling,” Hall tells them. “You deserve to experience it.”

First-round games take place Friday and half the 32 teams in each division will advance to Tuesday’s second round. That’s where Hall and the Fighting Irish are hoping this season is different from last.

They didn’t get that far a year ago. Kennedy was No. 1 in Orange County and expected to at least match 1992’s semifinal performance. Instead, a ninth-inning meltdown ended in a 4-1 first-round loss to El Toro, an at-large team.

The county’s best team was gone-- snap! --like that.

“It was devastating,” second baseman Laurie Fritz said. “Extremely devastating.”

It wasn’t the first time Kennedy players had felt such emotion. The Fighting Irish were No. 1 in Orange County and the top-seeded team in the playoffs in 1991, but were beaten in the second round by Katella, an even bigger upset than the El Toro loss.

Three current players, Kristy Hensel, Laurie Fritz and Joy Hannifin, were on that team.

And the next year Kennedy reached the semifinals.

Hannifin, the catcher on those Irish teams, says the atmosphere this year is similar to the one that accompanied the ’92 semifinal run.

“The big difference between this year and last year is that this team is much more focused,” Hannifin said. “I would compare it to my sophomore year. I have a lot of the same feelings. Miss Hall keeps saying, ‘If I’m going to win a championship while I’m coaching at Kennedy, this is the year.’ From Day 1 she’s said that.”

Of course, Hall is counting on her team learning from its mistakes. A year ago, the Irish (then 24-2) were looking ahead. This year, their approach is to take one game at a time. Has anyone learned anything?

“Hits in clutch situations win games,” Fritz said, “not just being the better team.”

Hall has emphasized that over and over. For the past few weeks, she has written motivational phrases on the team bulletin board. And when the players get out to practice, it’s re-emphasized in a discussion.

“What does that phrase mean to you?” she asks them.

Said Hannifin of the daily routine: “It re-establishes your focus every day.”

In Hall’s six previous years, Kennedy has won a championship, appeared in the semifinals three times and made early departures twice.

Seven players are back from last year’s early exit. Kennedy (20-5-1), ranked fourth in the county, shared the Garden Grove League title with third-ranked Pacifica and entered the playoffs as its No. 2 entry. As such, the Irish didn’t get the cushy fourth-seeded position Pacifica did, but they are in the same spot in the bracket from which Los Alamitos reached last year’s final.

“Miss Hall is stressing the mental game a lot more than the physical game,” Hannifin said.

“Yeah, I’ve been on a tear the last three weeks that we can’t overlook anything in CIF,” Hall said. “We can’t waste any time. We must understand that everything counts. We overlooked the first round a year ago. We’re perfectly capable of losing if we don’t play well.

“If anyone has learned something, I would hope it would be us. Just because you’re ranked very high, you’re not going to go all the way unless you perform at that given moment.”