Gilroy
– Here’s the pitch: Sibling rivalry is a lot more fun this year
for the Olvera sisters. Both right-handed pitchers, they are
playing leading roles on softball teams enjoying banner
seasons.
Gilroy – Here’s the pitch: Sibling rivalry is a lot more fun this year for the Olvera sisters.
Both right-handed pitchers, they are playing leading roles on softball teams enjoying banner seasons.
Jen Olvera is 13-2 for Vanguard, which entered the week ranked eighth nationally in NAIA. Patty Olvera is 10-3 for Gilroy, third in the ultra-competitive Tri-County Athletic League. She will attend Vanguard next year on a partial athletic scholarship, just as Jen has for four years.
“She’s a little better hitter than I am,” says Jen, a senior academically on track to graduate May 5, but with junior eligibility. “I throw a little harder.”
“No way,” says Patty, a senior at GHS. “I’ve been throwing in the 60s.”
“So have I,” Jen retorts.
That’s the way it is for the two sisters, who have grown closer through the years. Before Jen left Gilroy to attend Vanguard in Costa Mesa, Patty was the younger sister who wanted to hang with her older sister. But the older sister didn’t want the younger sister cramping her style. And yet, Patty admits her fire to become a good pitcher came from a sister she admires. That doesn’t keep her from trying to outdo her sister.
“We’ve grown closer as we got farther apart,” Jen says.
“She used to not want to take me with her,” Patty says. “Now she says let’s go hang out.”
Art Olvera, their father, figured a way to bring the girls together. He would bring both with him to practice their pitching, sometimes late at night at the tennis courts at Las Animas Park.
“My dad always forced me to take her to pitching lessons,” Jen says. “We would fight for mound time while dad caught. I think we hit him a few times at every spot on his body.”
Interestingly, Art Olvera was never a softball or baseball player. Nor was his wife, Isabel. But Jen and Patty became pitchers at an early age, and younger siblings Aly, 12, and Jonny, 9, are pitchers as well.
Jen Olvera has been the trailblazer. She played varsity for four years at GHS, the last two as the lead pitcher.
“She was a workhorse,” remembers her Mustang coach, Julie Berggren. “She was super intense in a good way. She was definitely a leader on the field who got things done.”
Jen has enjoyed the Vanguard experience, but it wasn’t until this year that the Lions (33-8) of the rugged Golden State Athletic Conference had a breakout season. Other than her first game against California State University-San Bernardino when she won despite yielding five runs, only one team has scored more than two runs against her. Jen’s two losses were by 2-0 scores, most recently earlier this week against top-ranked California Baptist. Through her first 39 games, Olvera was hitting .346 with 27 runs scored and 22 RBIs.
Patty has also played four years of softball at Gilroy. Like her older sister, this year has been the most enjoyable as the team has posted a 17-5 record. Patty pitched 30 straight innings without allowing an earned run until the recent loss to San Benito. She is hitting .279.
“She works hard at her pitching,” GHS coach Catherine Hallada says of Patty. “She does what she needs to do. She’s a quiet leader who the girls look up to. She’s improved her attitude a lot.”
But there is plenty of attitude among the girls. Patty may text message or call her older sister and boast what she did during a particular game. And Jen will reply and try to one-up her younger sister.
Whether they play together for the first time next year is still to be determined. Though Jen has a year of eligibility remaining, she’s contemplating calling it a career at Vanguard.
“For the last four years, I’ve done nothing but played softball and did school,” Jen says. “I know I would miss it but I would enjoy the break. My senior class is leaving.”
Still, Jen hedges by saying, “I want to play with my sister. It would be fun for the family to come down and watch us both.”
Patty is hoping Jen does play. After all, how will she be able to one-up her older sister if she is on the sidelines?
