Two years ago, before Jessica Steigelman stepped into the box
with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning against
Gilroy, San Benito manager Scott Smith approached his
then-sophomore first baseman and asked her a simple question.
”
I asked her how she wanted to remember her last at-bat at
CCS,
”
Smith said two years ago.
”
Nervous and scared, or just having fun?
”
Any idea which one Steigelman picked?
HOLLISTER
Two years ago, before Jessica Steigelman stepped into the box with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning against Gilroy, San Benito manager Scott Smith approached his then-sophomore first baseman and asked her a simple question.
“I asked her how she wanted to remember her last at-bat at CCS,” Smith said two years ago. “Nervous and scared, or just having fun?”
Any idea which one Steigelman picked?
That was in 2009, although the rhetorical question Smith asked then seems awfully relevant now.
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Steigelman has figured out a way to make sure any last at-bat is knock-you-over-the-head memorable. Just make sure you’re up at the plate with the biggest, most important game of the season on the line. Playing against your biggest rival helps, too.
Oh, and be sure you hit a no-doubt-about-it screamer into the outfield that scores at least the go-ahead run.
“She just lit it up,” Smith said on Tuesday, just three days removed from Steigelman’s bases-loaded walk-off in the bottom of the seventh against Gilroy, which was just two years removed from Steigelman’s bases-loaded, 3-RBI triple in the bottom of the sixth against Gilroy — both clutch hits lifting the Balers to a CCS championship victory over their archrival.
“She crushed it,” Smith added.
When Steigelman entered the box on Saturday at PAL Stadium in San Jose, with two outs and the game knotted at 2-all, she briefly thought about 2009. Back then, though, it was a far different scenario.
The Balers were actually trailing 3-1 to Gilroy in the bottom of the sixth in that game, when Steigelman turned on a 1-1 inside fastball and banged it off the left-field wall as three of her teammates scored. On Saturday, it was a tie ball game, but Steigelman’s 1-0 bomb off Mustang Sarah Lira was just a bit more dramatic, and for the senior, a bit more memorable.
The walk-off hit sailed over the outreached glove of Casey Lester in center field, scoring Brittany Sparrer for the game-winning run.
“It came into my head,” Steigelman said Tuesday of her 2009 hit. “But I just went up there and tried to have fun, relax.
“I knew it was my last at-bat in high school.”
Steigelman hasn’t had the opportunity to reflect back on Saturday’s blast, one in which Smith said would have been out of most softball fields, and out of PAL Stadium as well had it not been hit to dead-center. Thinking back on her 2009 hit will perhaps come with time, too.
But Saturday’s improbable hit — yet completely probable for Steigelman — almost didn’t happen. The senior K’d twice to start the contest, and was nearly pulled from the lineup by Smith, who opted to keep his first baseman in the game instead.
Good choice, coach.
“I saw something different in Steigelman,” said Smith, who previously saw his first baseman struggling and pressing at the plate. “That’s the type of kid she is. She never gives up on herself.”
The two strikeouts may have been a blessing, too. Steigelman said she felt less nervous at the plate in the bottom of the seventh, because she was already hitless and had no where to go but up.
“I had nothing to lose,” she said. “I was already doing bad.”
“I wanted to prove that I was better than what I was showing before,” she later added.
And after Gilroy’s Lira, who was pitching outside all game, threw the first ball by Steigelman low and outside, the UC Davis-bound senior figured another outside pitch would follow.
She guessed right.
“She had done it before,” senior shortstop Jessica Vest said. “I knew she was gonna come through and pick our team up.”
