Battery puts a charge into Highlanders softball

Batteries supply the power for your cell phone, your iPod, your PSP.

Same with your high school softball team.

It’s the battery that makes the team go, and it’s hard to argue that any Greater Spokane League battery has supplied more spark over the past year and a half than Shadle Park’s Stephanie Trudeau and Randi Sandifer.

That spark goes beyond pitching (Trudeau) and catching (Sandifer), especially this year.

Trudeau has pitched for the Highlanders varsity since she was a freshman in 2002. She was first-team All-GSL as a sophomore and a junior. But this year, she’s splitting time with freshman phenom Sam Skillingstad, giving the Highlanders a one-two punch that has propelled them to the top of the league with a 10-1 record.

Senior year, headed to Dartmouth to pitch next season, three-year starter … does it bother Trudeau to be part of a pair instead of a lone ace?

“It’s actually pretty nice,” she said, “because, if you think about it, like last year there would be times where I would get little injuries where my side is hurting, or my back or when I got my toe injury at the end of the season, that’s pretty devastating to the rest of the team.

“It’s hard because you are letting them all down and there’s nothing you can do. You don’t want to be injured but you have to go out there and pitch. To know there is someone else there that can get it done just as well … it’s actually pretty nice.”

Trudeau’s attitude was not unexpected, according to Highlanders coach George Lynn.

“Stephanie is brilliant,” Lynn said. “She handles things maturely. She is years above her age in maturity. She’s the type of person I can say something to and she’ll say, ‘I understand.’

“It’s a tough role for a senior when you have put tons of work in, (and) you are a top-quality pitcher, to share some time, it is a tough thing, but she understands that it is the best for the team.”

Both Trudeau (5-0, with a 0.66 earned run average and 52 strikeouts in the latest GSL statistics) and Skillingstad (5-1, 0.59, 89 strikeouts) have been nearly unhittable, which is one reason the Highlanders lead the GSL heading into the second half.

But every pitch thrown has to be caught, and that’s where Sandifer comes in.

The senior has only been catching since the summer after her sophomore year and her initiation came chasing down pitches from Trudeau, already first-team All-GSL.

“It went pretty good, but I got nailed a couple of times because I wasn’t that good,” Sandifer said of her first time behind the plate. “But then I grew to love it, and now I do fine with it. The first time, though, was interesting.”

Not only has Sandifer grown to love the position, she developed her skills well enough to be first-team All GSL as a junior. And she’s earned Trudeau’s respect.

“She’s real easy to throw to just because I’ve been doing it with her so long it’s just really comfortable,” Trudeau said.

But the main reason Sandifer has earned a scholarship to Montana State is more about what she does in the batter’s box.

In the latest GSL statistics, she was second in the GSL with a .581 batting average, four doubles, two triples, 15 RBIs and 16 runs scored.

When asked what her strength is as a hitter, Sandifer doesn’t hesitate to mention her aggressiveness, a trait she believes assures herself of good swings every time up.

Lynn concurs.

“She knows that when she takes the batter’s box, she is going to take some good cuts,” Lynn said. “She is going to attack the ball. She sees the ball very well. She knows when that delivery is on the way, she’s going to attack that ball and having nothing left of her swing when the at-bat is done.

“She is just so eager to learn, they both are. The thing about those two kids, they have done a crash course on softball.”

Trudeau has learned about her craft. She relates her pitching genesis to the road students take learning a subject.

“My freshman year I threw a fastball, if you could call it that,” she said. “I knew there was a thing called a changeup, but I didn’t have one. I had no idea how deep you could get into pitching.

“It’s just like learning math, say. In elementary school you learn the times tables, how to add and to do long division and stuff, and you think that is what math is. Then in middle school you learn you can put variables and letters in there and make equations. You get to high school and you learn there are different functions and they turn into graphs and pretty soon you don’t know what the heck is going on.”

Despite all her smarts, there was one day last spring when Trudeau did, by her admission, “probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

In the first game of the District 8 playoffs, Trudeau broke out a new pair of cleats. She pitched fine, though her foot started hurting near the end. After the victory, she pulled off her cleat and her sock was full of blood. The new shoes had ravaged her big toe.

With Trudeau gamely trying to throw off an injured foot, the Highlanders, a favorite to advance to the regional, were eliminated for the second consecutive year at the district tournament.

The lesson learned – “You don’t put new shoes on in a big game, let alone cleats,” as Lynn put it – is also part of the motivation for this year.

“It’s going to happen,” Trudeau said of this year’s team making the regional. “After the past two years, when pretty much the same thing has happened to us in districts, we’re not going to let it happen again. It gives you more determination and makes you want it more and it will be even more special because it’s never happened for us before.”

With Trudeau and Sandifer supplying the spark, it’s probably not a good idea to bet against Shadle.