Dealing with cold season

Unless you’ve experienced it for yourself, you can’t know the pain.

“Oh, man – no way,” University High School center fielder Alyssa Hawley laughed. “It’s one of those things that you just have to have experience to really understand. Especially when it’s as cold as it’s been this season.”

Cold temperatures, a softball bat and a speeding ball collide, turning a batter’s hands into a raging jangle of nerves that cry out to be compressed – either between one’s knees or under one’s arms. Anything to make the ringing pain diminish.

“People who don’t know how much it hurts tell you to just shake it off,” Hawley said. “It’s just not that easy.”

Hawley knows better than most.

The Titans’ center fielder, a first-team All-Greater Spokane League pick a year ago, has carried a hot bat through the extended cold snap, helping to keep U-Hi in the thick of a heated race. Multihit games are her norm.

“I’ve really had to work on it this year,” she said. “I’ve been working hard on my swing. It’s finally coming around.

“But it’s been so cold that hitting isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world to be doing. Usually by this time of the season we’re out there practicing in shorts and T-shirts. Now we’re wearing long underwear, sweatshirts and earmuffs. It’s crazy, going out to play and having it snow on you.”

Through it all, Hawley has amassed six multihit games this season. She’s collected three hits in three different games and smacked four, including a pair of doubles, in a 13-12 loss to Mead.

“I still have to get better,” she said. “I think we all can play better. We’re going to have to play our best in these last games of the regular season and in the playoffs.”

The playoffs are set to begin the first full week of May.

“We have a pretty good idea of who we’re going to have to play,” Hawley said. “We’re going to have to beat some really good teams if we want to get out of our district tournament.”

Beyond that, she said, who knows.

“I really think it will be tougher getting out of our own district, against the teams from the GSL, than it will be after that,” she said. “This is such a tough league.”

Hawley has been at her best against one of the league’s top pitchers, North Central sophomore Kelsie Vallies.

The senior has four hits off Vallies in two games this season, helping the Titans to a season split. Three of those hits keyed a 5-4 victory.

The first time Hawley and the Titans faced the league’s No. 1 hurler, Shadle Park senior Sam Skillingstad, U-Hi was held to just one hit as a team.

“They both throw with about the same velocity,” Hawley said. “But beyond that, I think they’re two totally different pitchers. Sam is much better at throwing inside and jamming you, and she throws a better rise ball. You have to work to get a hit off her.”

Hawley will get her second chance against Skillingstad and the defending state Class 4A champion Highlanders in the regular season finale, tentatively scheduled for May 5.

Like everything else in this unseasonable season, that’s subject to change.

“It’s been really tough this season,” she said. “You get up for games and then you don’t play. We’ve played five times in a week. It’s tough to get yourself ready to play mentally when you never know when you’re going to play. We pretty much have the attitude that we’re going to play every single day.”

One of the fringe benefits of playing softball for University coach Jon Schuh is the potential to play softball at the next level.

“I have a lot of teammates who have gone on to play college ball,” Hawley said. “That’s something you know going in about this program.

“Coach Schuh asked me if I was interested in playing college softball. He told me to let him know where I was interested in going and he would see what he could do to help me get there.”

Hawley has accepted a scholarship to play for North Idaho College next year.

“I have some former teammates who played over there,” she said. “It seemed like a really good fit for me.”