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57 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, April 29, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 29, 2005 Where are they now? Marie (Bowie) Sorensen North Medford High School, 1988 By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune Young baseball players in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., probably don’t know what’s in store next week when they get in the batter’s box against Marie Sorenson. "I guess I’m one who can’t really slow down my speed," says the former all-state softball pitcher for the Black Tornado. "You get what you get. Otherwise, I’ll walk everybody." Sorenson’s venture into baseball is only temporary, part of season-ending festivities at Thunderbolt Middle School, where she’s taught seventh-grade English and coached for seven years. She’ll pitch softballs to the baseball team, and the baseball coach will pitch to her softball team at a picnic. "I have to break out my cleats and start practicing," says Sorenson. Advertisement She moved to the lakeside community after graduating from Nebraska, where she pitched for three years. She and her husband, Jim, who works in air conditioning, have two sons, Korbin, 7, and Luke, 2. The kids celebrated their birthdays one day apart two weeks ago. Jim Sorenson also is a partner in a salvage business that operates around the lake. Prime times are spring break and holidays, gleaning what revelers leave behind. When students descended on the lake this spring, the popular item was "Family Guy" T-shirts, part of a Fox-TV promotion. "We have about a hundred of them," laughs Marie Sorenson. Coming out of college, she didn’t plan on teaching. Her degree in human development primed her for a counseling career, but after working as a school secretary in Lake Havasu City — where she’d visited while in college — she went back to school for her teaching degree. "That got me," she says. "I thought, ‘This is kind of addicting. I like these kids.’" Given the success she had at North, it’s no wonder she enjoyed the school atmosphere. Sorenson, who also played volleyball, was the star pitcher from 1986-88, culminating her prep career as a first-team all-stater and pitching the State to a one-hit, 1-0 win over the Metro in an all-star series. Sorenson recalls working with pitching guru Duke Anderson "constantly, nonstop. We’d find little places to pitch here and there so I could pitch all year. We worked hard and he got me to where I ended up." She had a career record of 63-15 at North, with an ERA of 0.80 and a school-record 534 innings pitched. Sorenson was overpowering and had an effective dropball, but her "flip" change-up "was killer," she says. In college, she learned a half-speed dropball that proved very effective. At Nebraska, Sorenson shared pitching duties with a teammate through her junior year. But her coach attempted to revoke her scholarship her senior year for performance reasons, she says. She appealed to the NCAA and won but didn’t play her senior year. She remains active in slow-pitch softball, volleyball and by riding her mountain bike around town. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Free Music Downloads Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Distance Education Diamonds Online Poker Slippers Student Loans Tatoo tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Website Design & Marketing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Tatoos Advertisement s