In his 13 years as San Benito High’s softball coach, Scott Smith has never had so many freshmen and sophomores play prominent roles on the team.
Three sophomores — shortstop Callee Heen, third baseman Suzy Brookshire and pitcher-first baseman Maddy Gutierrez-Urban — start, and freshman Tina Ramirez starts in left field.
In an ideal scenario, coaches prefer to have a starting lineup dominated by upperclassmen, and with good reason. Juniors and seniors typically have more experience, and most of them have gone through the rigors of a couple of varsity seasons.
However, the Haybalers’ freshmen and sophomore players aren’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, wide-eyed teenagers. After all, Hollister is a softball hotbed, consistently producing players who play with a maturity and focus belying their age.
In Heen, Brookshire and Gutierrez-Urban, the Balers have three players who live for the bright lights. Brookshire and Heen are putting up some huge numbers, making them one of the most lethal hitting combos in the Central Coast Section.
Brookshire leads the Balers, who were 6-2 entering Thursday’s game against Christopher, with four home runs, 14 RBI and a robust 1.846 OPS, while ranking second on the team with a .522 average.
Heen has team-best marks in hits (15), average (.622), runs scored (11), while ranking second in OPS (1.575). Gutierrez-Urban, meanwhile, is 2-0 as the No. 2 pitcher behind ace Adriana Ibarra, and has allowed just two earned runs in 11 innings after starring on the junior varsity squad a year ago.
The trio all made dramatic strides in the off-season, especially Brookshire, who was called up to the varsity team midway through last season, where she appeared in only three games and was hitless in five at-bats.
Realizing she wasn’t ready for the varsity level, Brookshire dedicated herself to improving in every phase of the game. However, no one predicted that Brookshire would already have four home runs at the halfway point of the season.
“When I came up to the varsity last year, I was literally the worst player,” said Brookshire, who has made a verbal commitment to play for Sacramento State. “I was really bad. So it’s kind of crazy and hard to believe how I got here and what I’m doing now.”
Brookshire hit two home runs in the Balers’ 5-1 win over Notre Dame-Salinas on April 3, and she’s had a couple of multi-RBI games. So has Heen, who has one of the sweetest strokes in the section.
Heen said she improved her swing in a couple of ways over the off-season. Daily sessions of batting practice at Monterey Player Development resulted in Heen developing a more compact swing to go along with faster bat speed.
Despite having no varsity experience entering the season, Gutierrez-Urban has handled herself well. Gutierrez possesses an effective dropball and solid change-up, and she throws both pitches with tremendous movement.
Smith said all of the team’s freshmen and sophomores possess the physical talent to get the job done, but it takes a little longer to master the mental part of the game. Case in point: At the end of March, the Balers actually lost back-to-back games to Leland and Valley Christian, the first time they’ve suffered consecutive defeats in four years.
“I think we were a bit distracted, and we certainly didn’t play our best (in the two losses),” Smith said. “As coaches you pull back a little bit and let the kids figure it out because the losses have to piss them off a little bit.
“Against Leland we didn’t have our best pitcher out there, but I still thought we should’ve won. We just made silly mistakes and fell apart. When you have this many underclassmen starting, you’re going to go through some growing pains. But overall the girls have responded well.”
The sophomore trio said improved on-field communication will be one of the keys to the season.
“We’re still jelling,” Heen said. “In certain situations, we’re still coming together.”
Said Gutierrez-Urban: “We’re getting to know each other better, and that’s going to help with our chemistry.”
Added Brookshire: “We take losses hard, and I know (losing two straight games) made me really upset. For a young team, we have to be mentally up for every game, and not get down when things aren’t going our way.”
Because of the Haybalers’ youth, there’s little doubt that opposing coaches are thinking that the eight-time D-I section champions are ripe — finally — for the picking.
Smith, however, doesn’t see it that way. For Smith and his assistants, the challenge is molding the youthfulness of the team into a polished product by the end of the regular season.
Fortunately for the Balers, they’ll have plenty of time to come together.
“Right now we’re good enough to beat anybody, but we’re also young enough to lose to anybody,” Smith said. “We’ve looked really good and bad, sometimes in the same game. The biggest thing right now is the players have to learn how to fight, how to play with emotion and heart. Once they learn that, we’ll be really good.”
