Former Lady Baler JC Clayton is off to a strong start to open
her collegiate career at BYU, where she is currently batting
.375
— the seventh highest average in the entire Mountain West
Conference
PALO ALTO
JC Clayton is a freshman at BYU, although her expectations perhaps exceed that of many first-year softball players.
Take, for instance, her performance to date for the BYU softball team.
The former Lady Baler is currently batting .375 (30 of 80) for the Cougars, which is the second highest average on the team and seventh highest in the entire Mountain West Conference. She also boasts a .405 on-base percentage (fourth on the team) and an .878 fielding percentage with 58 assists as a shortstop.
But by her account, of course, there’s still plenty of room for improvement, which is exactly the kind of drive one would expect from a flourishing freshman.
“I’m doing pretty well, but I’d love to do better. I’m always wanting to do better,” said Clayton, whose current batting average is tops among freshmen in the Mountain West, with five of the top six spots belonging to seniors.
“But I’m a hard critic,” she added. “I’m frustrated because I’m not doing as well as I want. It’s the little things. I get frustrated with myself when I make errors — just stupid little mistakes get me like striking out and not having quality at-bats.”
And not surprisingly, people often tell her she’s too hard on herself. But excelling at a high level with a big-time program — and in her first year, no less — Clayton’s push isn’t at all different than most athletes, even if her quick adaptation to the college game might still surprise some.
Prepared to play
In the first inning on Friday against Cal State Santa Barbara, JC Clayton slapped a bouncing ball up the middle and into center field, supplying the BYU Cougars with their first hit of the game. In the third, she lined a double to the right-center field gap, and later scored BYU’s first run. Later in the fifth, Clayton slapped a single into left field, her third hit of the contest.
Graduating from San Benito High School just last spring, Clayton said she could not have been more prepared to play softball at the collegiate level, and her stats are only backing that up.
“There isn’t really anything I can think of that would have given me more of an advantage than I came in with,” she said.
Clayton began playing softball at the age of 7 for the Hollister Heat 10-and-under travel ball team, was part of four Central Coast Section winning teams at San Benito High, and both of her softball-loving parents have been alongside her for the ride. Her father, Darrell, is one of the coaches for the varsity softball team at SBHS — and remains to coach despite his daughter’s graduation last spring — while her mother, Kim, is not only one of her biggest fans, but also previously played the sport while attending Gavilan College.
“She’s a big critic, but she always tells me to relax,” Clayton said of her mother. “And my dad, if I get stressed out with softball, he helps me out a lot.”
Stress is common among incoming freshman, of course. The rigors of school work coupled with living away from home can provide a difficult atmosphere at first. Toss in athletics, where plenty of travel and practice time are suddenly added to the daily schedule — much more so than at the prep level — and competing at a high level game in and game out becomes all the more demanding.
“But those three hours of practice or a game always take your mind off of everything else,” Clayton said.
Clayton said she’s certainly felt the effects of travel, too — although how could she not? The Cougars are currently 20-7 on the season and have yet to open Mountain West play. Furthermore, the team’s 27 games don’t even include a single home game in Provo, Utah.
The Cougars will have their home opener on Wednesday against Utah State.
“It’s not too bad, but it’s a lot of traveling,” she said. “We haven’t been able to play at home anyway since the weather won’t let us.”
The biggest challenge for Clayton has been being away from her family and being away from California, she said. But the former Lady Baler’s travels do bring her close to home every once in a while.
Last weekend, Clayton and the BYU softball team competed in a four-game invitational at Stanford University in Palo Alto — a homecoming of sorts for the Cougar shortstop as she was able to spend Saturday night with friends and family in Hollister.
“It was great,” she said. “I got to go home.”
And the Cougars went 4-0 to boot, and even defeated host Stanford, the No. 9-ranked team in the nation, by a 4-2 margin.
Student of the game
While adapting to the college atmosphere will come with time for Clayton, transitioning to the college game hasn’t posed much of a problem, and should only further develop in the years to come.
“She’s a student of the game and she finds ways to make it work, no matter how tough the competition is,” said San Benito manager Scott Smith, who coached Clayton for four years at the prep level.
Noting that college softball is a speed game where everything is played at a faster pace — from the pitching to the running to the fielding — Smith is not at all surprised by the freshman’s fast start.
“My biggest surprise is that Arizona didn’t grab her up,” he added.
Clayton often played the game faster when she was in high school anyway — her slap approach and quick feet often turning routine grounders into singles, routine singles into doubles.
“The game is quicker (in college), as in the ball gets to you quicker, the pitcher is better and throws faster and with more movement,” Clayton said. “Everything is a step up.”
And while Clayton’s fast start is certainly something to write home about, there’s still plenty of room for improvement, at least by her own standards.
“You have to earn it in college,” she said. “You have to earn everything you can get.”
