Megan James will play softball this weekend.
The only problem is the New Hope High School junior doesn’t know if she will be in Ridgeland or Tupelo, or if she will be playing slow- or fast-pitch softball.
These days, more and more players like James are trying to juggle multiple sports during the school year in the hope they will be able to improve their skills and attract the attention of college coaches. James’ juggling act is one more and more softball players in the state of Mississippi are trying to perfect. The performance will continue at 5 p.m. today when James and her New Hope High teammates will take on Neshoba Central in the best-of-three Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A-6A North State Championship series in Philadelphia.
The winner of that series will take on the winner of the South State series between Northwest Rankin and George County on Saturday at Freedom Ridge Park in Ridgeland.
A victory today would help New Hope end Neshoba Central’s run of four-straight slow-pitch state titles and eight championships in a row between the slow- and fast-pitch seasons. Neshoba Central has eliminated New Hope in seven of those seasons en route to its titles.
A win also would mean James would play one more slow-pitch series and would have to miss a fast-pitch tournament in Tupelo that her travel team, the Mississippi Express 16-and-under squad, is scheduled to play in.
“I see a whole lot more people out there playing (travel softball) and they are taking it more seriously than they have in the past,” James said. “It used to be like slow-pitch softball all of the time. Then fast-pitch came out of nowhere and everybody started playing fast pitch. I think that is what got everybody motivated, seeing how D.J. (Sanders) and Lauren (Holifield) all of these other girls went to play Division I. We looked up to them when we were seventh- and eighth-graders.”
Mixing fast, slow
This is the first year James has played with the Mississippi Express. She has been playing travel ball since she was 10 years old, and is one of a handful of New Hope High players — Alex Melton and Kaiya Palmer — who stayed busy playing travel ball during the summer. Palmer, who is a member of New Hope High’s fast-pitch team, doesn’t play on the slow-pitch team.
James said she played in eight to 10 exposure tournaments with the Mississippi Express, which is based in Tupelo. She said she played as many as five games a weekend and traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee; Florence, Alabama; Atlanta; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and other places throughout the region.
One of the highlights was a seventh-place finish at the Triple Crown Sports Southeast Nationals in Alpharetta and Cumming, Georgia.
James said she feels she did “OK” during the summer and was able to overcome “a couple o rough patches hitting.” She said she is willing to bypass time with friends and other vacation activities to be on the softball field because she hopes to earn a scholarship to play softball in college.
James is willing to do that even if it means she pushes herself to exhaustion. In July, James said she suffered from heat exhaustion at a tournament in Brandon and had to be taken to the hospital. She said she didn’t eat or drink enough leading up to the tournament and suffered the consequences. James said she came home from Jackson that night and went back to the hospital in Columbus the next morning because her heart rate had dropped. She said she felt bad and had to undergo a series of tests on her heart, but doctors weren’t able to determine a cause of the pain.
Now that she has recovered, James said she is more mindful of how to eat and to drink prior to playing. She said the experience isn’t something she wants to repeat and knows she has to take better care of herself.
“I have been told so many times by my coaches to stay hydrated,” James said. “Sometimes I get caught up in it and forget to do those things.”
Most players don’t have the health issues James encountered, but they highlight the passion and the intensity the players bring to their sport. Neshoba Central’s Trae Embry and New Hope’s Bobby Taylor, who coach slow- and fast-pitch softball at their schools, said they have seen an increase in the number of players involved with both sports, including more who are trying to do it at the same time.
In fact, Embry, who started the fast-pitch softball program at Eupora High and won a combined five slow- and fast-pitch state championships in 12 years at the school, also is juggling both sports. Following his slow-pitch team’s practice Monday night, Embry took his daughter, Mary Claire, 8, to her travel ball team’s practice.
‘Big growth’
“Now you have so many kids and so many more teams and tournaments available for the kids to play that there definitely has been a big growth,” Embry said. “I feel like it is happening all over the state. I think it definitely gives kids a chance to go play and improve, and that is what the game is about.”
Embry acknowledges there are positives and negatives associated with travel ball. He said college coaches typically frequent travel ball tournament to watch as many players as they can to identify their next prospect. One negative, he said, is players don’t get a lo9t of time to practice situations and fundamentals because they are playing so many games.
Still, he said it has been easy for him to spot the difference between players with travel ball experience and ones who haven’t played when he holds tryouts for his team.
Embry also said more parents and players recognize how playing travel ball can impact their family’s future, so more players are willing to give up a summer or miss out on family activities. He said that is a big change from when he was at Eupora and left-handed pitcher Edie Oliver was one of his first players to get involved in travel softball in a big way. He said her willingness to go to Memphis, Tennessee, and to dedicate herself to the sport helped her earn a scholarship to Delta State in Cleveland.
Taylor, a longtime baseball coach at New Hope, has seen a growth in travel ball in the short time he has worked with the school’s slow-pitch softball team.
“I think a lot of them are getting seen in travel ball,” Taylor said. “The only thing about travel ball is they need a little time off at some time. In baseball, they get a month off. I worry about some of them getting burnt out playing too much travel ball.”
Taylor said James took a break after she had the episode with heat exhaustion in the summer. He said he worries about the players eating and drinking right prior to the tournaments so they can perform their best at the events, which sometimes have games Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
James said she has stayed busy with slow-pitch softball and with her schoolwork so she hasn’t had time to play in any fast-pitch travel ball tournaments in the fall. She isn’t sure if she will have time to return to the fast-pitch game when the slow-pitch season ends so she can prepare for the 2017 high school and travel ball circuit.
James said her time playing travel ball has helped her realize there are a lot of parents and players who are serious about their sport.
“I think I improved a whole lot over the summer,” James said. “It is just a lot of learning to do and a lot of growing up and maturing, too. In 14-U and in the past age groups, you’re not used to all of the college coaches and it being that serious, but this year it kicked in about serious it was.”
Focus on athletics and academics
Not only was the level of play different, but James also noticed the difference after college coaches came up to her and asked her what she scored on the ACT, a standardized test colleges use to gauge the aptitude of high school students.
“It really opened up my eyes to start taking school seriously because that is what they look at the most, not just how you play,” James said. “I used to think I could be good and go anywhere, but it has to be about your grades, too.”
Deangelo Westbrook, who coached James on the Mississippi Express, said he has seen softball explode in Tennessee and in Mississippi. He said Mississippi is proving itself to be more than just a state that still has slow-pitch softball and is capable of producing quality fast-pitch players.
“I think they’re able to compete with the best out there,” Westbrook said. “When we take on a team from the West Coast, Florida, or Texas, there are a lot of great organizations out there, but from the teams that e have played from those areas, (the girls from Mississippi) are able to compete and hold their own. It gives them a sense of pride to be able to compete with the best out there. Our biggest thing right now and talking to coaches is slow pitch. Some organizations are fast-pitch year round.”
Westbrook didn’t want to take a side on slow- or fast-pitch softball. He did say, though, that exposure for the sport is increasing and that all states are catching up to the bigger ones in terms of the quality of play.
That’s good news for players like James, Palmer and Caledonia High’s Lauren Duckworth, Hope Harbin, and Gracie McCleskey, who are among the area’s top players. Many of them grew up watching players like New Hope High’s Holifield, who was a standout at Jones County Junior College and is a senior at Southern Mississippi, and Sanders, who is a junior at Louisiana-Lafayette, a perennial top-10 program. Today’s high schoolers know travel ball can help them forge a path to play in college just like Holifield and Sanders. Like James, more and more are trying to make the most of their time and play as much softball as they can.
“I talked to D.J. Sanders before and she said this is the year she started to kick in and do a lot more things,” James said. “She said to start taking it more seriously because coaches really look for that in a player. They look for a leader out there on the field. It has to be something you’re really serious about and you love and you’re willing to put the time and effort into.
“I have loved it for a long time. It motivates me more and more every time I step on the field. You have to get better if you want to get to a certain point in college. Ever since I was little, I have wanted to play for Ole Miss or Mississippi State, but it is going to take a lot of work, so that is what I have been trying to do.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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