SPRING HILL – Not a whole lot has gone wrong for Springstead’s softball team throughout the regular season, and with the postseason approaching the Lady Eagles have the luxury of dreaming big.
They concluded the regular season at 23-1 with a 7-0 home victory over Hernando Friday night. Among the stars of the game was sophomore catcher Paige Pfent, just as she has been all year long. Out of the third spot in the batting order, Pfent went 3-for-3 with a pair of run-scoring singles.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Pfent said. “But I’ve been pretty confident in the box and really just sticking to my plan, and kind of just going with the pitches and turning on inside pitches. So it’s been successful so far.
“It’s kind of incredible. It’s kind of hard to describe because there’s really no words for it. This team with the support; from everything, from pitching to the field and just knowing that they’re going to have my back even if I don’t get on base. It’s just a good feeling knowing that all my hard work’s paying off.”
It has paid off tremendously, to the tune of a .500 average with 13 doubles, three triples, nine home runs, 34 runs scored and 40 runs batted in prior to Friday. She paced the team in every one of those categories except triples.
“You don’t see stats like that, especially for a sophomore,” Springstead head coach Craig Swartout said. “It’s been kind of a dream season and it’s been fun to watch.”
She had already been spectacular as a freshman, hitting .417 while notching seven doubles, five triples, four homers, 24 runs and 29 RBI.
Swartout pointed to Pfent’s work ethic as the secret to her success at the plate, noting that she’s “always taking extra swings, always wanting to do be out there and do some extra work. That’s what makes her a little different from everybody else. She wants to put in the time.”
All that repetition in practice has certainly translated to the games, though it might have been tough to predict what she has accomplished.
“I knew it was possible. But I knew that I was going to have to get the right pitches and really work hard,” Pfent said. “It’s crazy. It’s reassuring knowing that all the hours I put in, it’s really paying off. So it’s an incredible feeling.”
Of course she’s not alone on the Lady Eagles. Against Hernando (14-10), Audrey Selby had a pair of RBI groundouts to help build a 4-0 lead, then Kayla Cruz smashed a three-run homer to left-center field in the bottom of the fifth inning.
That was plenty of support for ace Kama Woodall, who permitted four singles, two walks and a hit batter while striking out 10 across the full seven innings.
“I was pleased. We put the ball in play, which was good,” Swartout said. “With the wind blowing like it was, we really wanted to focus on keeping the ball out of the air, and we did a really job with that. So I’m really pleased with how we hit the ball tonight.”
The Lady Eagles won’t play again until Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the semifinals of the Class 6A, District 6 Tournament, which they’ll host. As the top seed, they received a first-round bye and will take on the winner between fourth-seeded Weeki Wachee and fifth seed Lecanto.
“This team is young, but they play way beyond their years,” Swartout said. “We have seven freshmen and sophomores, but it’s like we have a team of eight or nine seniors. Everybody has one focus, one goal. When you have teams that have a mindset like that good things happen, and we’ve been fortunate so far this year.
“Our ultimate goal is to win a state championship. But we’ve got to take care of business, we’ve got to get there first. We’re playing a good team on Wednesday night. We were lucky enough to get a bye. So we’ll play the winner of Lecanto and Weeki Wachee, and we’ll come give it our best and we’ll go from there.”
“I think that we can go all the way as like anybody would say,” Pfent said. “But I think we need to take it one game at a time. Because we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves. We’ve set four goals this season and we’ve achieved the first one of winning the Leopard Slam a couple weekends ago, and then we just achieved county champs. Now we’re going for district champs and then state champs. So one game at a time.”
Regardless of what happens, Pfent, who has already committed to the University of North Florida, still has two more seasons at the prep level, and she believes she needs to keep working hard to get even better.
“Sky’s the limit. She’ll go as far as she wants to,” Swartout said. “She’s a pretty level-headed kid, so I’m not worried about the ego thing. I think she’s going to be just fine.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.