ROBERT BENSON photos Escondido's Lisa Alkmine demonstrated a sofball pitch.

Rancho Buena Vista's Brooke Rhoades has six. El Camino's Courtney Craig does, too. Escondido's Lisa Akamine has five, but she's working on getting to six – pitches, that is.

In the eternal war between pitchers and catchers, the average baseball hurlers bring just a few weapons – two or three solid pitches, maybe four with some creativity – to the fight.

Softball pitchers, by contrast, bring an entire armory with them when they head to the pitching circle. Using different grips and different wrist motions on follow-through, they produce pitches that rise, drop, dart left or dart right. Others simply go so slowly that they seem as if they'll never get to the plate.

With so many pitches in her repertoire, Rhoades says there can be more signals than her catcher has fingers.

Yet despite the apparent embarrassment of riches for the average pitcher, the reality is something quite different, says Escondido head coach Cary Weiler, a longtime pitcher and pitching coach.

“The rise, the drop and the change-up,” Weiler said. “Almost everything evolves around those three pitches. They put a lot of fancy names on them, but you're basically throwing those three, and off of them you can create the curveball and the screwball and so on.”

Fastball grip

Change up grip

Rise ball grip

Although each pitcher said her repertoire could go as many as six pitches deep, each also admitted that things get simpler during crunch times. With the game on the line, or when a strikeout is an absolute necessity, the average arsenal narrowed to a single go-to offering.

“Mostly the curve,” Rhoades said. “I'm trying to get them to chase (a pitch outside) or jam them (inside).”

For Akamine, it's often the rise, a pitch that led to countless swings and misses Wednesday when she tossed a no-hitter against Rhoades' Longhorns, striking out 13 in the process.

“Usually when I have two strikes, I'll throw a rise out of the strike zone,” she said. “Whatever it is, I want it be out of the zone. Even if they don't swing, I still have some more pitches to work with.”

With new pitches relatively simple to invent and young players eager to claim an impressive arsenal, Weiler said one of a coach's biggest challenges is convincing a pitcher that less can in fact be more.

And vice versa.

“In my experience, the more pitches the pitcher has, the lower the level they played,” Weiler said. “My goal is to get them to own two or three pitches. When you watch the College World Series, you see (University of Tennessee pitcher) Monica Abbott pounding the strike zone with her best pitch. She's throwing 70 or 80 percent rise balls, working inside and out and hitting her spots.”

Unlike baseball pitchers, who often must develop an extra pitch or two to be successful at higher levels of competition, Weiler said softball pitchers must cull their less effective pitches from the mix and focus on strengths. It's a process that can take time, and success at the lower levels can slow it even more.

“At the freshman and JV levels, you can probably get away with stuff,” Weiler said. “You might say, 'Wow, I threw a really good screwball.' Maybe you did. Or maybe you didn't, and she just didn't hit it. As you get to the higher levels, batters usually start finding a way to hit the mistakes.”

It's for that reason that some of San Diego's most successful pitchers find their strengths early and stick with them.

For Rhoades, a softer thrower than Akamine or Craig, the curveball is a staple, and establishing command of it early in a game is vital.

“We throw a first-pitch fastball every now and then to get a for-sure strike, but mostly it's the curveball,” Rhoades said. “For me, it's more about getting all my spins working (early in a game). After that I work on quickness.”

As a senior, Akamine says her increasing success has less to do with her grip and more to do with her head. With a fastball that tops out well over 60 mph, she says creativity can be overrated.

“Every game, I try to go out there with a dominant mindset,” she said.

“Freshman and sophomore year, I hoped they wouldn't hit it. Now, I try to go out and attack the hitters. I usually keep throwing a pitch until they prove they can hit it.”

As the CIF playoffs approach, plenty of talented arms will be gunning for a championship and bringing all of their pitches to bear in the process. But as Weiler points out, through all the funky grips and deliveries, success doesn't have to be complicated.

“One of the best pitches in softball is a strike.”

 Zach Jones: (760) 752-6751; zach.jones@tlnews.net