CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. -- It's not unusual to hear the thud of bat hitting back as a player completes a swing in the on-deck circle, a bass drum beat amidst the sounds of a softball game.
But the noise coming from the on-deck circle when Oklahoma State senior Alysia Hamilton swings at air is a little different, first entering the periphery of your attention and eventually forcing you to focus on her as the bat completes its violent arc with a sudden stop against the back of her helmet.
"I don't know how it started, but I just try to swing as hard as I possibly can and so it just happens," Hamilton offered with the chuckle of someone accustomed to the question, answering the follow-up before it's asked. "And no, it doesn't hurt."
Luckily for Hamilton, a two-time all-conference selection who is hitting .431 with three home runs and an .706 slugging percentage through the first 16 games this season, it's the ball that usually absorbs the force of her swing once she enters the batter's box. But after a weekend at the Cathedral City Classic that saw the Cowgirls win four out of five games, including a victory against a Georgia team ranked No. 1 at the time in one poll, Hamilton's unique routine seems fitting for a team and a group of seniors intent on expending every bit of energy available to them.
Oklahoma State is no stranger to softball success, not with a history that includes one of the greatest players in the sport's history, Michele Smith, amidst a string of aces and six Word Series appearances. But by the time Rich Wieligman arrived as coach prior to the 2007 season, the program had fallen off the pace in the Big 12, hovering just above or even just below .500 for much of first decade of the century and making the NCAA tournament just twice in an eight-year span.
Fast forward and the current group of seniors, the first class recruited by Wieligman, has yet to experience a losing season and is coming off back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. Led by Hamilton and Mariah Gearhart, an All-America and Big 12 Player of the Year candidate at third base, the class sets the tone for a program that plays the kind of no-frills game, aided by no small measure of talent, that might be expected under a coach who worked his way up to Triple-A as an undrafted free agent in his own baseball career.
"It's huge that you get those freshmen that come in, and they buy into what you're trying to do and they stay the course and they keep working," Wieligman said of Hamilton, an Oklahoman, Gearhart, a Californian and the seniors. "And I think it shows that they're having fun, they're competing, they don't give up, they never quit. I just love the way they play the game."
Attitude alone, of course, doesn't dictate results. Oklahoma State has compiled a team slugging percentage of better than .400, a rather modest milestone in this day and age, just three times since 1996. If you don't have Smith in the circle, that isn't going to get a team very far. But under Wieligman, who rose quickly through the coaching ranks as a hitting coach at Texas A&M, the Cowgirls have become a more patient team -- their on-base percentages in each of the last three seasons rank among the seven best in program history. As players like juniors Julie Ward and Chelsea Garcia, sophomore Tamara Brown and freshman Ari Morrison fill in around Hamilton and Gearhart, the power may follow patience.
"That's what we want to continue doing, is keep getting better each and every year, and that's the path that we're taking," Hamilton said. "So I can definitely tell that we're taking those steps we need to to become a better team and play at the level we want to play at."
Not that the Cowgirls will lose the decidedly impatient energy of an upstart. Helmet sufficiently battered in the on-deck circle during the fifth inning of a scoreless game against Georgia, Hamilton stepped to the plate and drove a single up the middle. Off and running from second base, Gearhart rounded third and headed for home without breaking stride -- running right through Wieligman's stop sign to beat the throw and score the game's only run.
"You know. you've got your four-hole hitter on deck and they were playing shallow and we got nobody out, so I'm like, yeah [hold her up], and she ran through it," Wieligman said. "But you know what? She scored. She's fast -- and she said she was running extra fast, I guess. As long as she's safe, you can't get too mad at her."
It takes more than being hard-headed to rebuild a program, but as Hamilton and Gearhart prove, it doesn't hurt to start there.
Toughness is nice, and the kind of speed and on-base percentage a player like Gearhart brings to the table is even nicer. But any team looking to make a splash in the postseason still needs pitching. And in the win against Georgia, sophomore Kat Espinosa showed something that earns respect and trust in locker rooms across the sporting spectrum.
Not only did Espinosa shut out a Bulldogs lineup that hadn't been blanked in more than a season, she pitched the three-hitter on an increasingly empty stomach. "I was about ready to pull her because I thought she was going to pass out -- you know, she's throwing up in the dugout," Wieligman said of the flu-ridden sophomore. "She just showed tremendous guts and just fortitude to get through that not feeling her best."
After walking the bases loaded with two outs in the sixth, Espinosa coaxed a pop-up out of Ashley Razey, who would hit one of the longest home runs in memory later in the weekend against Arizona. And after putting two more runners on in the seventh, Espinosa caught All-American Taylor Schlopy looking at strike three for the final out.
"The nice thing about that is when you leave a kid in in those situations, they learn to fight and dig down deep and get through it," Wieligman said. "And [they] don't have to look over their shoulder to see if I'm going to pull them."
