By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
When junior left fielder Paxtyn Piper stepped to the plate with the bases loaded on Monday evening against Carl Junction, the Willard softball team was in a tough spot trailing 7-4 to the visiting Bulldogs in the bottom of the seventh inning.
The Lady Tigers had hope after Payton Hicks had been hit by a pitch and replaced by pinch runner Callie Wilken, Callie Ebert had drawn a walk, and then Reagyn Leeper had been hit by an errant pitch, as well, to load the bases for Piper. She took the first pitch for a ball, fouled off the second and then launched a home run to right field for a walk-off grand slam.
“I came up to the plate just wanting to score runners and get some RBIs to decrease their lead,” Piper recalled Tuesday. “We were down, and I wanted to get closer, I wasn’t trying to hit a home run at all. I just saw a good pitch, and it felt pretty good.”
While the Bulldogs might have been stunned by the turn of events, it was a familiar sight for Willard this season. The game-winner was Piper’s 13th home run this season, and her 4th grand slam. She hit her 12th in the bottom of the second on a line drive to left field––right after Callie Ebert homered to center.
“She came on last year as a sophomore starter and was mostly a JV player as a freshman,” Willard coach AshLeigh Williams said. “We always knew she had potential for some power and she kind of showed that as a sophomore but the beginning of this year she just came out on fire, had 10 home runs in 10 games and took off. She’s come up really big for us in big spots, especially with the bases loaded. She’s 4 RBIs away from the school record for a season and she’s just been having a phenomenal year so far.”
She batted .318 and led Willard with 5 home runs and 28 runs batted in as a sophomore and said she went into that season just trying to work her hardest and earn a spot. This year, in just that 10-game stretch to start the season, Piper batted .559 with 17 runs scored, 29 RBIs and 10 home runs. She homered in 7 of the games, and her 2-home-run games included a 3-for-4 performance against Marshfield in which she hit grand slams in the 5th and 6th innings and drove in a total of 10 runs. Emily Barr and Liv Arauz also added to the home run barrage in the 14-12 win.
Willard (23-5) has five regular season games left before starting postseason play as the top seed in Class 4 District 6 and Piper is still hitting north of .400 with 32 runs, 48 RBIs, 13 home runs, 7 doubles, and 2 triples. In addition to nearing the single-season RBI record, she’s also 3 home runs away from tying that school record for a season.
“I don’t know what the grand slam record is but I would say she’s probably broken it with the 4 already,” Williams said.
“We knew coming in she was going to be our big RBI person and we weren’t really sure how to build a lineup with that because we thought teams would catch on and walk her a lot,” she said. “We were trying to figure out the best place to put her and we figured the leadoff spot, people probably wouldn’t walk her as much not wanting to face the middle of the lineup with someone on. That’s been helpful, and the bottom of our lineup being good at getting on base has given her those opportunities to come up with the bases loaded a lot.”
Piper said she’s just trying to execute her job and get runners in when at bat in those situations.
“I try to put my best swing on every ball and it just kind of happens,” she said.
“I haven’t always hit for power but I’ve really worked on lifting more and trying to get my power up.”
More than a third of Piper’s hits have been home runs this season, and 22 of 36 have gone for extra bases.
“She’s a lot of all or nothing, when she gets ahold of one it goes if you’ve ever seen them,” Williams said. “She’s a strong kid, puts in a lot of work in the weight room. When she squares a ball up it’s either going to be a super hard line drive or it’s going over the fence. She’s a hard out to get and she works her butt off to make it that way. It’s impressive.”
Piper has worked to eliminate a lot of swings and misses from her game by refining her swing over the years, Williams said.
“Getting on the plane of the ball, making sure she squares more balls up and getting that launch angle that goes out instead of swings and misses. Her strikeouts are way down, bat to ball contact is up and the ball just jumps off it.”
The Lady Tigers surpassed last year’s win total (16-17) in their first game of October and had won 11 straight before falling 4-0 at Joplin on Tuesday. They averaged nearly 8 runs per game during the win streak.
“We try to work together and be a team and keep everyone up,” Piper said. “If someone gets down, tell them they’ll get the next one and they will. We’ll just keep battling through it.”
Including the district opener against Parkview on Oct. 15, Willard is in the midst of playing 14 games in as many days and hosts Republic (16-13) Thursday. Williams said the schedule is intentionally back loaded so the team is seeing a lot of different pitching and getting prepared for any situation that could happen in next week’s district tournament.
“Today was tough but we’ll bounce back and have another on Thursday,” she said.
“We’re a pretty special group of girls and I think we’re going to go far and do good things the rest of this season,” Piper said.
