She’s a competitor
Alex Marquard knows a little bit about successful teams.
Granted, most of her knowledge is related to the soccer pitch, where she’s a three-time All-Greater Spokane League first-team midfielder and recruited to play midfield at Western Washington University after she graduates from University High School next month.
But the senior center fielder also is an integral part of the Titans softball program, helping the team win the Class 4A state championship in 2003 and helping lead her teammates to the No. 1 seed in this weekend’s regional tournament.
“Soccer is a completely different game than softball, but if you compete, you compete – no matter what sport you’re playing,” Marquard said. “If you’re a competitor, you’re out there to win. It’s just really refreshing to be around two such great programs. And it’s refreshing to be around great coaches and great teammates who compete every day, even in practice.
“Soccer is the game I play year-round. It’s nice to be able to play softball to kind of take my mind off soccer for a little while.”
Marquard doesn’t play softball like a part-timer. Going into this weekend’s play, the all-GSL senior has a .447 batting average while striking out just twice all season. She boasts a .547 on-base percentage with 14 runs scored.
Those statistics closely match her numbers from soccer, where she led the GSL in assists as a junior and was second as a senior.
She’s been a key reason each program has reached the postseason every year she’s been at U-Hi.
This year has been especially sweet. Both the softball and soccer teams entered the season with young rosters, needing some talented freshmen to step up in order to contend.
“We were very young teams in both soccer and softball,” Marquard said. “We had young players who came in and were willing to work hard and earn starting positions. It’s great to be able to watch them grow. I remember what it was like when I was a young player and was thrown into that position. It’s stressful, but when they rise to the occasion it’s a great thing.”
One of the key elements of success for a young team is leadership.
“You have to all focus on the good of the team and realize that younger players don’t have the experience that older players do and that you’ll have to help them fill the roles they have to play,” Marquard said. “With both soccer and softball, you don’t look at players for the class that they’re in. You look at them for the position they’re playing. Everyone is equal on the field. You do your job, and you get it done. That’s what it’s all about. An athlete is an athlete, no matter what sport you’re playing.”
The Titans enter the regional tournament on a high note: upsetting previously unbeaten Shadle Park, 2-1, in extra innings to claim the No. 1 seed. More importantly for University, the Titans beat one of the state’s most dominant pitchers in the Highlanders’ Sam Skillingstad.
“That was a great cap to a great senior year,” Marquard said. “It just meant a lot to us all to finally be able to beat them, especially our seniors. That was a really big confidence booster, to show that we can play with a team like Shadle Park.
“Softball is 90 percent mental. If we go out there and play outstanding defense, we know we have a chance against anybody because we’re not going to face a pitcher any more dominant than Sam.”
Even in the playoffs, soccer is not far from Marquard’s mind.
“Soccer, for me, is a lifestyle,” she said. “It’s everything, and I pretty much play it year-round. In the winter you’re usually playing State Cup, which for us Spokane girls means traveling over to Seattle every weekend for games. In the spring, you’re playing Olympic Development, and that’s tournament season for club. During the summer, you’re constantly playing tournaments.
“During the high school season you’re literally playing seven days a week. It takes a toll on both your mind and your body, but I wouldn’t take back a minute of it. It’s been worth it.”
Marquard is part of a five-player freshman class at Western Washington – part of a group expected to add more offense to a program that went 9-8-2 last year, 6-5-1 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference a year ago under head coach Travis Connell.
No one in the GSL has more assists the past two seasons than Marquard, and she will have two outstanding freshman goal-scorers to feed for the Lady Vikings: Bellingham’s Claire Morgan and Lucy Miller from Pacific Palisades, Calif., who combined to score 190 goals during their high school careers. Morgan scored 50 goals as a sophomore at Bellingham, but played few games as a senior because of a knee injury.
“I got a pretty generous offer to play over there,” Marquard said. “My parents are really excited because they’re going to be able to come watch me.”