Vintage multi-sport star Groves to play softball at Pomona-Pitzer College
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Mo Groves has been in the middle of a lot of athletic success in her time at Vintage High School.
So, it only makes sense that someone who was so important to so many teams would be moving on to play at the next level. On Tuesday, she made it official by signing with Pomona-Pitzer College in Claremont to play softball.
“Of course softball, they’re really great school, like top academic school,” Groves said as to what was the deciding factor to choose Pamona-Pitzer. “A really great education, which was what I was looking for in a school. Their team dynamic is so fun and positive and the coaches are so nice and supportive.”
When Groves gets to Pomona-Pitzer, she’ll major in environmental analysis. Also, in her time as a Crusher, she carried a 4.56 cumulative grade point average.
“I definitely devote a lot of time to school,” Groves continued. “I had to take a lot of honors and APs and take the SAT and ACT a bunch of times to get a higher score. Because they’re division three, I had to get in on my own merit. So I had to get good grades, get the test scores in order to go to school, and play softball.”
Pomona-Pitzer is an NCAA Division three school that competes in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Association. This season the Sagehens were off to a 4-7, with a 2-4 record in SCIAC play before their season was cut short due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. In the 2019 season, they compiled a 31-12-1 record to go with a 21-7 SCIAC record.
Pomona-Pitzer is a part of the Claremont Colleges that consists of Pamona College, Pitzer College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, and Harvey Mudd College. All the campuses are located about one square mile away from one another.
Basketball
Groves was a major part of Vintage’s success over the past three seasons. In her three years as a varsity starter, she was oftentimes referred to as the glue of the team.
“She’s very calming too,” Vintage girls basketball coach Joe Donohoe said. “She doesn’t change the way she plays whatever the circumstances might be. If we would’ve had her all the way through league I think we would’ve had a different ending to our season for sure.”
She was the starting center when Vintage won back-to-back league titles in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. The 2017-18 title was the first league title for the Vintage in 33 years.
“Both of those teams just had amazing girls,” Groves said. “The team had chemistry and the love and a bond that always remember, and it’s just amazing.”
This past season, she missed a few games due to injury. But when she came back it was as if she hadn’t ever missed a beat. Her breakout game of the season came in the second and final Big Game of the season against rival Napa when she scored 11 points and brought in 10 rebounds for a double-double. Vintage squeaked out a Big Game win on February 6th over Napa by a score of 45-42.
“She’s obviously highly intelligent,” Donohoe continued. “So she can read the situation and see what we need. And I could ask her for different things. You know, she was always asked to get 10 plus rebounds. That was always one of her jobs.”
Groves also played for Legends Hoops of Napa Valley as well growing up.
Softball
With the softball team, Groves also had a major role.
In her four years at Vintage, she was a four-year starter in right field. Her breakout year came last spring when she was a junior. That season she hit an eye-popping .406 to go along with eight home runs and 32 RBIs. She also had a .442 on-base percentage that year.
“It’s definitely difficult every year of softball having a new coach, but last year when (coach Robert) Poppe stepped in we really all came together as a team,” Groves said about her breakout season in 2019. “We had a couple few key leaders, and they always stepped up to the plate and got everything done. My hitting came at the right time last year. It all came together during league (play) and I’m really glad.”
“She was in our number five hole last year and she always produced in that spot,” Vintage softball coach Robert Poppe explained. “So it’s gonna be a hard bat to replace and she pretty much shut down in right field when she was in it.”
During the 2019 season, the Crushers went 14-7 overall and had an 8-4 record in the Vine Valley Athletic League, which gave them a second-place finish. They lost 5-2 against Carondelet-Concord in the first round of the CIF North Coast Section Division I playoffs. In that game, Groves provided the only offense when she hit a two-run homer in the top of the fourth of that game.
Vintage was off to a 3-1-1 start when the Pandemic ended their season a few weeks ago.
Overall, she ended her time with a .323 average, .361 on-base percentage, with 41 total RBIs.
Groves also played for Universal Fastpitch Softball out of Martinez. They are an organization that plays on the Premier Girls Fastpitch circuit.
