D.J. Sanders doesn’t try to hit home runs. She never has and never will.
Instead, she and her teammates step into the batter’s box with the mind-set to “hit it hard and wish it well.”
Sometimes, though, the ball just happens to go over the fence.
On Saturday, Sanders and the New Hope High School slow-pitch softball team had a power surge coach Tabitha Beard believes was unmatched in the program’s history. Sanders smacked four of her five home runs on the day in a victory against Union to lead New Hope to a pair of victories at the Eupora High tournament.
For her accomplishments, Sanders is The Dispatch’s Prep Player of the Week.
“It had a lot to do with picking good pitches to hit,” Sanders said. When I first started playing, I had never seen a slow-pitch ball. I was trying to put together my fast-pitch and slow-pitch strike zones. As I kept playing and got more comfortable with it, I know what to look for.”
Beard said she talked with her father and they believe the only thing that comes close to matching the performance of Sanders and the rest of the team was a two grand slam effort. Lauren Holifield had three home runs, Kasey Stanfield had two, while Kaitlin Bradley and McKenzie Harvey each had home runs in a 37-hit attack against Union.
“It was very fun to watch,” Beard said. “It was one of those games that was fun because the girls were in it and defensively they did well.”
Beard admitted Sanders had struggled being in front of the ball while hitting at practice before the team’s first two games of the season. She said Sanders and the lady Trojans capitalized on the low-arc of the Union pitcher and didn’t have to wait as long to find their pitches to hit.
For Sanders, that pitch can come at anytime, even though she said she sometimes is picky about which one she chooses. On Saturday, she said she didn’t expect to get four chances to hit home runs and thought she would get intentionally walked. Instead, she worked a walk between her third and fourth home runs. When it came time to have another swing, she said her eyes didn’t bug out, her front side didn’t come open, and she didn’t drop her shoulder to come under the ball.
“I try to be late on the ball,” Sanders said. “Last week, I hit a ball over the fence (at Lady Trojan Field), and it was an accident. I knew it was my pitch. It was an outside pitch, and those are the ones I love to hit because I think the right-field fence is shorter than most of them, but I got really excited and I pulled the pitch all the way past the scoreboard.
“It is really hard to wait, but that is why I have the bat on my shoulder. It still gives me time to pick it up and make sure it is my pitch. Even when I feel I have waited long enough, I wait a second longer to make sure.”
Beard said Sanders is one of the few hitters on the team that she doesn’t get worried about when she gets behind in the count. She said Sanders, who grew up playing fast-pitch softball, has learned how to lay off pitches that are deep in the strike zone and to drive the pitch that is right for her. Beard credits her husband, Wade, for working with all of the hitters on the team and building their confidence so they know how to look for a pitch they can hit hard and wish well.
“Some other girls tend to know what they need to be successful, but they get anxious and just want to hit and go after it,” Beard said. “That is one thing D.J. doesn’t do. She seems to be more poised in the box. There was a time when D.J. was not like that, but the more she has worked on it with people, especially with Wade, it has registered in her mind that she needs to wait on this pitch.”
The only blemish on Sanders’ day came on a fielder’s choice in game one. Beard said Sanders made great contact on the play and drilled a line drive up the middle. The only problem was the ball was hit so hard that Bradley had to wait to make sure it wasn’t caught and then was thrown out at second base.
“It was an amazing weekend,” Beard said. “That ball was hit as well as you can hit it. You can’t ask for anymore than that.”
Sanders knows her thinking — or the mind-set of any of her teammates — will change after Saturday’s victories. She said Beard loves for her players to hit line drives and that they will work hard in practice not to pop the ball up. The danger in falling in love with the long ball could be dangerous, especially if New Hope wants to continue on its run of five consecutive Mississippi High School Activities Association slow-pitch state titles. To earn a sixth in a row, the Lady Trojans would have to win two games in Jackson on the VA Fields that have fences 300 feet away. Even the hardest hit line drive would have a hard time getting over the fence there, so Sanders will continue to hit it hard and to wish it well. If the ball goes over the fence, she’ll take it.
“Sometimes I can tell as soon as it leaves my bat that it is going over the fence,” Sanders said. “But two of those I thought it was another pop up and I was like, ‘I am going to get in trouble because coach Beard isn’t going to like these pop ups. The second one felt exactly the same. … When it went over, I was like, ‘Whew. that is good.’ After a while, I think (Beard) got tired of it because she kept saying, ‘Line drives, line drives.’ I was trying to focus on line drives, and it was. It was a line drive. It was just a line drive over the fence.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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