New Hope High School softball is about tradition.
Take a look at the school”s website, newhopetrojans.com, and you will see pictures of “babies” who grew into young women.
Cary Shepherd first blended the talents from various classes into a championship mold. Tabitha Beard, who played for Shepherd, has continued the trend, building a family that relies on young and old to form a cohesive unit.
Like in years past, the 2010 New Hope High slow-pitch softball team mixed middle-schoolers, freshmen and sophomores and juniors and seniors into a lineup that didn”t rely on one player to shoulder the load.
Haley Tutor and D.J. Sanders represented the different generations that made this season”s team special. Tutor grew up playing slow-pitch softball and gravitated toward fast pitch, while Sanders has stayed busy on the fast-pitch travel ball circuit and has developed into a dominant slow-pitch talent.
Tutor, a senior, led the team in hits and batting average (.526), while Sanders, a freshman, hit .518 and paced the team with 42 RBIs to lead the Lady Trojans to a fourth consecutive state title, and 13th overall.
For their accomplishments, Tutor and Sanders are The Dispatch”s slow-pitch All-Area co-Players of the Year. Beard is The Dispatch”s Coach of the Year.
“When I started looking toward next season (in 2009), I thought a lot about when I started here and Haley was D.J.,” Beard said. “It sort has come full circle. D.J. was on the second slow-pitch team I took over here as a seventh-grader, and to watch both of them grow, it is amazing.”
Beard has enjoyed watching all of her players, the younger ones she calls “babies,” mature from “little girls” into “family members.”
It is has been easy for Beard to have Tutor and Sanders as daughters because all three love the game of softball.
Tutor, one of five seniors on the team, shouldered the responsibility of being an older leader who didn”t want to disappoint in her final slow-pitch season. She might have thought about it in years past, but the finality of everything hit her hard this season.
“I realized it really meant more than it did the year before,” Tutor said. “You know you have to win and you have to do it. No one will understand that feeling until you are a senior, and that made the difference for me this year.”
Tutor tried to stand up more and to help the younger players because she knew from years past seniors set the tone for the program. As easy as it might have appeared to slide into that role, Tutor admitted it was a “big weight” on her shoulders. It”s a tribute she didn”t allow that affect her play.
“Haley doesn”t say a whole lot, but when she does everyone listens,” Beard said. “She is more of the ”I will show you what I am talking about,” and she always hustles and gives 100 percent. When you”re in a bind, you want her to be at the plate. That is an example she gives to the people around her, and that is much better than any word (she can say). I don”t think I have ever heard her say a whole lot in terms of correction to the girls, but the girls looked up to her because of the way she played.”
Tutor, a leadoff hitter who played left field, typically was in the middle of all of the Lady Trojans” rallies, which this season relied on singles to piece together big innings. As much as she enjoyed the things she learned being part of a team, this season could have been her last time wearing a New Hope uniform. Tutor decided not to play soccer, and Beard said she isn”t sure if Tutor will play on the fast-pitch team in 2011.
If it”s her final showing, Tutor can be happy with her performance.
“I was proud of myself and glad I came through and did what I needed to do for my team,” Tutor said. “That helped lift the weight off my shoulders. I felt like I grew as a person.”
Sanders took a step to becoming the program”s next Tutor. Whether it was at shortstop or when she was hitting, she continued to show a poise that is uncommon for such a young player.
But don”t allow the relative ease with which Sanders plays or the calm demeanor she shows on the field fool you.
“It takes until the second inning for (the butterflies) to go away,” said Sanders, who admits she hates to “mess up” on defense because that is what the program has relied on for years.
Sanders said she gets nervous before every game, even when she plays basketball. She feels messing up is the worst thing she can do, so she tries not to do it.
“(This season), people expected me to be as good as I was nervous about that,” Sanders said. “I was a year older and I was supposed to be better and people were looking up to me. I guess I lived up to expectations. I could have been better, and I wish I was. There is always room for improvement.”
Sanders wants to become a better defensive player. She said she will accomplish that goal when she can take the field or the court and be ready to go and “not be fearless.”
Beard feels Sanders is close to that point, and attributes her success to preparation.
“D.J. works hard and she works a lot,” Beard said. “She plays ball year-round. Summer ball, they mature so much faster and get them ready beyond what they are. She will stay after practice and take groundballs if she is messing up, or she will come hit were her dad on Sundays. It was very rare on a Sunday that I would ride by the field and her family would not be there. When you work that much it is easy to be confident in what you”re doing and not let the butterflies overcome you.”
Beard said Sanders always has been a very mature player for her age. That poise showed in the state championship series when Sanders had a three-run, inside-the-park home run in game one to provide a spark in a 6-4 win. New Hope, which took game two 6-5, didn”t deliver its best hitting performance against Picayune in the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A series, but it still was enough to send another senior class out as champions.
“D.J. always has been as a player very mature for her age, and it showed a lot this year,” Beard said. “She stepped up a lot when we needed her, especially in Jackson with that home run when we were struggling at the plate. The babies found a way to pull through because her and (freshman) Kaitlin (Bradley) had a few. It was kid of full circle that the seniors ended the game, but the freshmen got us where we needed to be to win. (The different classes of girls) worked together well.”
The victories also set the bar a little higher for the next group of Lady Trojans.
Don”t expect that to faze Sanders.
“Pressure is sometimes a good thing,” Sanders said. “If you don”t put pressure on yourself, you don”t care. I try to use the pressure to make myself work harder so I can do better.”
That”s a motto that has fueled New Hope”s softball tradition, and will continue for to do it for years to come.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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