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PW softball stars commit to Div. I-A universities
Even though one school is Group AAA and the other is AA, the Battlefield and Brentsville District varsity softball teams were equal in one regard this year: Both captured district titles in the regular and post season.
Battlefield ultimately finished second at states and Brentsville came in second at regions. With most of their starting lineups expected to return for the 2009 campaign, the Bobcats and Tigers were already staked out to be formidable favorites.
So last week, senior Battlefield stars Courtney Liddle and Brittany Black and Brentsville’s power-catcher extraordinaire Kaitlyn Barbour committed to Division I-A universities. Liddle will go to Virginia Tech, Black is heading to Austin Peay State and Barbour will attend James Madison University, thus relieving all three of the pressure to search for the right colleges.
That means they can concentrate fully on leading their teams to 2009 state titles.
Barbour
Since Barbour entered Brentsville as a freshman, her team has won the Northwestern District title each year. During those three seasons, she accumulated a .414 batting average, hit nine home runs, drove in 78 runs and tallied a .763 slugging percentage.
Just because she inked a deal with JMU last Wednesday night inside the high school library, does not mean she is going to alter her approach to the next season, however.
“It’s not going to change at all, I think, because I’m going to work just as hard as I ever did in that aspect of the game,” she said.
When Barbour visited the Harrisonburg campus for an unofficial tour, she instantly loved it. The team coaches were positive and welcoming toward her, she said, as were the players already on the softball team.
JMU’s reputation for academic prowess also caught her attention as she is leaning toward majoring in criminal justice.
“As people know, it’s a really good academic school and that was a big part,” Barbour said. “Academics always comes before softball for me.”
In a twist of pure fate, three of her travel-team teammates all happened to sign on to play at JMU, too.
As for her final season at Brentsville, the Tigers could have at least one obstacle to overcome: One of the team’s ace pitchers from the last two years, Devon Hileman, may need season-ending shoulder surgery, according to assistant coach Pat Finnigan.
But the assistant coach dispelled any notion that Barbour may try to carry the team’s load herself as he said she attempted to do early in her high school career.
“She put a lot of pressure on herself and that’s part of being a quality athlete. You want to be the best,” he said of Barbour, who has played every inning of every game since 2005.
But, he said, “we have four or five quality freshman coming in.”
Black and Liddle
After 10 years of sharing the field together, the all-star battery featuring Black as pitcher and Liddle as catcher will finally come to a close next spring as the two don Battlefield purple one last time.
And the girls plan on going out with a bang.
“Yeah, let’s just put it out there,” said Liddle last Wednesday after she officially committed to becoming a future Hokie. “Everybody knows, we’ll say it, write it down: We’re here to win states this year.”
With Liddle as her catcher for most, if not all, of her innings pitched during the last three years, Black (27-10, 0.92 ERA) struck out 368 batters in 252.3 innings, more than six times the number of batters she walked.
Meanwhile, the Battlefield battery has combined for 25 home runs and 191 total hits during that span, 88 of which have been for extra bases.
“Since the day they stepped on the field as freshmen, they made us a very competitive team. And their progress has been very representative of the team’s progress,” said Battlefield coach Joe Schelzo.
Their travel-team play, however, caught the universities’ attention. Virginia Tech officials have had their eyes on Liddle for the last two years, while Austin Peay State scouts were impressed by Black’s performance at a tournament in California last month.
Like Barbour, Liddle and Black found the campus atmospheres to be ideal for them.
“You have everything you need in that town,” said Black of the Clarksville, Tenn. location. “There’s so [many] places to eat. There’s every possible restaurant you can think of.”
In Blacksburg, “I went tailgating and multiple people just offered me chicken,” Liddle, a future visual communications major, said with a laugh.
Though most of the people did not know her, everyone “was so nice,” she said, especially the softball coaches and players.
A 4-2 loss to Hickory HS in the state championship this past June could be the only catalyst needed for the dynamic due to lead their team to victory before graduation.
According to Schelzo, Battlefield will be “two or three deep at every position.”
“We came so close last year,” said Liddle, later adding, “we still have that state championship ring that I’m not wearing right now. We want it so bad.”
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