Despite its youth and inexperience, San Benito found a key piece
in junior Jessica Vest, who provided a strong season at the plate,
in the field, and as one of the team’s central leaders
HOLLISTER
Having already played in a pair of Central Coast Section Division I title games, and having competed in the Amateur Softball Association’s Gold National Championships last August — the be-all, end-all for the club softball scene — there wasn’t much Jessica Vest hadn’t experienced on the diamond prior to her 2010 season for San Benito.
After all, the former three-sport athlete has dedicated all of her sporting time to the game of softball since her freshman year, and the added practice has allowed her to make the most difficult of plays look routine at the shortstop position, make the hardest-throwing pitchers in the area look suspect, and, perhaps most important, make the pressures of a particular game or certain situation a moot point.
“It’s still just a game,” she said. “Winning is winning, and I don’t like to lose.
“I’m just trying as hard as I can.”
While Vest wasn’t without experiencing the dips and valleys all softball players go through over the course of a regular season, her performance in the CCS playoffs — in which she had a role in seven of San Benito’s nine runs, including five RBI and three runs scored — allowed her to showcase exactly what her experiences have taught her, and she is this year’s Free Lance/Pinnacle’s Most Outstanding Girls Spring Athlete as a result.
“Just like the team did, she grew up a lot this year — not thinking it’s all about going on the field and playing, but taking responsibility as of one of the team’s leaders,” said San Benito manager Scott Smith, whose Balers finished with a 10-2 record in the Tri-County Athletic League, 25-4 overall, and won their fifth straight Division I title in the process.
“She was definitely one of our team captains and kind of the quarterback of our defense,” Smith added. “I could always count on her being in the right place at the right time.
“She did an outstanding job and had she not stepped up, I still don’t think we would have been where we were.”
By now, the end result of San Benito’s season is well known. But the start of its 2010 campaign was filled with more questions than answers, and perhaps none were more important than which player or players would fill the team’s leadership role.
In other words, who would step up?
It’s a common question for any youthful team. But the glaring holes left by graduating seniors J.C. Clayton and Marisa Ibarra forced San Benito to speed up its development process, beyond the hitting and defense and base-running fundamentals.
Although Smith had an idea as to who some of his leaders would be entering this season, it was Vest’s prior experiences that made her an obvious candidate — she went 2 of 3 with two runs scored at the 18-and-under national championship last August in Oklahoma City.
“I was hoping she would do it this year, but I wasn’t sure. And if we didn’t find someone to fill that role, we wouldn’t be successful,” Smith said. “But looking at some of the leaders we had last year, she stepped into that role, and willingly.
“She told kids where to go, if it was a pull hitter, whether the lead runner was important — she was just always communicating with everybody and just made sure they knew what to do before the play. She’s just a really smart softball player.”
A first-team all-league selection, Vest batted .352 (31 of 88) this season with 27 runs scored and 27 RBI. With 10 multi-hit games, including a 4 of 4 performance against Alisal on May 6 in which she hit for the cycle, Vest connected on five doubles, three triples and five home runs, and boasted a .648 slugging percentage as well as a perfect 9 of 9 percentage on the base paths.
Furthermore, and perhaps most impressive, of her 88 at-bats this season, Vest struck out all of three times.
“It seemed like when we had really big games,” Smith said, “she would come through.”
The three-year varsity player was certainly aware of the responsibilities heaped upon her and the other leaders’ shoulders at the start of the season, though, and she admits to struggling with the role early on. As one of two returning first-team selections — along with center fielder Mari Vallejo — Vest felt she needed to help carry the team from the start, much more so than need be.
“But it was a whole team effort,” she said. “Different people stepped up in different games, and it relieved a lot of the pressure.”
Vest only began to come into her own as the season progressed, culminating in her dominant postseason performance when she batted .444 (4 of 9) with five RBI and three runs scored in three games. And Smith still looks to Vest’s at-bat against Salinas’ Alyssa Razo in the CCS quarterfinals as a pivotal moment in her prep career.
After doubling home the tying run in the fourth, and later scoring the go-ahead run in the same inning, Vest fouled off seven straight pitches from Razo in the sixth before blasting a two-run homer to left field. Four days later, in the CCS semifinals against Wilcox, Vest worked a seven-pitch at-bat against Charger Amelia Vivo before lining a two-run triple to right field.
“But it’s not even about waiting for the pitch,” Smith said. “It’s about learning how to foul off those tough pitches instead of putting them into play, and that’s really hard to figure out. But that’s what she did.
“You could tell in her swing that she was angling it so she could foul it off, but it’s a rarity in high school to see that. It’s pretty remarkable.”
And Vest, who gave a verbal commitment to Oklahoma following her freshmen campaign, still has one more year to improve yet again.
Already two weeks into her club softball season, the incoming senior will be in full swing until the prep season starts next spring. And right now, she seems to be enjoying each and every experience that is thrown her way.
“I think, as a team, we grew closer than any team I have been on for San Benito, and it was a lot of fun,” Vest said.
“As a team, we’re expecting to win (next year) and we’re gonna set that as our goal — to not let anyone beat us.”
