It’s one thing to be poised when you have an experienced group of teammates behind you.
A pitcher can relax a little be more and trust her teammates are going to make the plays behind her and get the team out of sticky situations.
It’s another thing to maintain a even keel when your team has lost three All-Area players.
But Chloe Tapley made the adjustment after losing mainstays like Magen Tapley, her sister, Jessica Fleming, and Cathryn Moore and helped the Hebron Christian fast-pitch softball team have another successful season.
“I think she matured,” said Hebron Christian coach Cass Tapley, Chloe’s father. “She still has that ‘there-to-win attitude’, but she kind of went with the flow. We were going to make mistakes this season (due to the youth on the team), and she made some mistakes, too. But whatever happened she was able to deal with and go on, In the past, that would have bothered her. I don’t think it did this year.”
Not only did Tapley do her best to deliver pitches with a poker face, she also did it in dominating fashion. She struck out a career-high 20 against Kemper County en route to being named the District 3 MVP and a team MVP for the fourth time in her career.
For her accomplishments, Tapley is The Dispatch’s Fast-Pitch Softball Player of the Year. This is the second year in a row Tapley, a junior, has won the award.
“I didn’t think we were going to do good at all,” Tapley said. “I didn’t even expect second in district, but once we started playing, (the younger players) really came around and played their positions. I thought I had to do better pitching because they were so young.”
Last season, Tapley had five no-hitters, three one-hitters, and 293 strikeouts. Her efforts helped Hebron Christian finish third in the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class A tournament. The finish was the best in school history in the program’s first trip to the state tournament.
Hebron Christian didn’t get as far this season, but Tapley did her best in the circle and at the plate. She struck out 251 in 130 innings and had an ERA of 0.84. She threw three no-hitters and five shutouts. She also surpassed 1,000 career strikeouts in a game against Calhoun Academy in September.
Tapley had a .417 batting average and led the team with 27 runs, 20 walks, and a .615 on-base percentage.
“She consistently dominated from the mound, even in the losses, to lead a young team to a successful season,” coach Tapley said. “She had to pitch a little differently this year. With such a young team, we asked her to go for the strikeout on every batter rather than just managing the game at times. Put her in the 3 spot hitting this year and ask her to drive in runs with power, which took her out of her left-handed short game and probably cost her a few points with her average, but that is what the team needed, and she responded well.”
Chloe Tapley felt the team’s inexperience helped her mature and learn how to overcome the little things. She said she learned to keep her focus and not let her emotions get the best of her in the circle. She admitted it was easier said than done this season, but she felt she grew as a leader and helped set the example for her teammates.
“I still have a lot of room to improve, but I think I did better than I did last year,” Tapley said.
Coach Tapley also said Chloe improved and matured as a pitcher. He said she developed more confidence in her changeup, which he believed she could throw in any count. He also said she was able to locate her pitches and showed an ability to move her pitches inside and outside and mix a screwball that acted as a riseball and a dropball.
Chloe said she is working on a curveball she hopes will give her another weapon to help keep hitters off balance. With a dropball she now feels is one of her best pitches, Tapley hopes to be even more consistent. She feels the team will be able to live up to that level, too.
Individually, Tapley expects to stay busy in the offseason with the Houston Heat travel ball team. She hopes that experience against older age-group teams will help prepare her even more for her final high school season.
“I think it’s a definite possibility that we can go maybe even further than we did when I was a sophomore,” Tapley said. “It was the first year for a lot of the players, and they did really good. They will grow a little bit, they will be much stronger, and they will know the game more. I think we can do really good next year.”
Coach Tapley feels Chloe will be more focused next season because it will be her final high school season. He said she was ready to start pitching again in October, right after the end of the fast-pitch high school season. But he said she will take a couple of months off before gearing back up for a travel ball season he knows will prepare her for 2012.
Tapley is excited to see what comes her way.
“I want to practice a lot more this year and get stronger so maybe I can throw a little bit faster,” Tapley said. “I need to get all my pitches to work more and spin the right way.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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