Athlete of the Week: Carlmont’s Ashley Trierweiler

The Daily Journal Athlete of the Week has gone on to hit safely in 96 of 103 games in which she’s played, totaling 195 career hits according to MaxPreps.com, marking Carlmont’s new all-time career hits record set 19 years previous by Janelle Yousef in 2000 with 194.

“I have two words,” Carlmont head coach Marco Giuliacci said. “Game changer.”

Last Thursday in Carlmont’s regular-season finale, a 12-9 win at Aragon to clinch outright the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division championship, Trierweiler reached the all-time record.

Carlmont credited Trierweiler with a 3-for-4 day, giving the senior leadoff hitter 195 hits in her varsity career. No. 194 tied the record, a bounding single through the right side of the infield in the second inning. Then in the sixth, Trierweiler reached on a bunt attempt that was scored by Carlmont as a hit (Aragon’s home book scored it as a fielding error, however Carlmont’s career stats as compiled by MaxPreps.com are inputted by the Scots) giving her the new record with 195 hits.

When Trierweiler’s march toward history began during her freshman season, she started the year as Carlmont’s No. 2 hitter. That didn’t last long. After a handful of games, former Scots head coach Jim Liggett moved her up to the leadoff spot. There she has stayed for four years.

“To me, it just kind of showed my hard work was paying off,” Trierweiler said. “Because I started in the No. 2 spot which was fine. I would have been happy just staying there. But moving up in the lineup … it shows you that hard work really does pay off, even if you’re a freshman.”

Trierweiler now owns a .533 career batting average, including a .568 mark this year. Unless she goes on a tear in which she hits safely in every postseason at-bat she takes this year — not impossible judging by the way she was swinging it last Thursday — the senior will likely fall short of her best single-season average from when she hit .600 as a junior.

Where she’s showed marked improvement this year, however, is as a slugger. Trierweiler currently owns a .851 slugging percentage, over a hundred points better than her previous career high, while also tabbing career highs with four triples and three home runs.

“This year, I’m kind of focusing more on hitting for power, per se,” Trierweiler said. “I still slap and I still bunt pretty regularly. But I’m also being tasked with just hitting away and going deep with the ball. Because that’s sometimes what you need from the leadoff when they’re not giving you respect in the outfield.”

The power game is something Giuliacci has encouraged from his table-setter.

“I think it just comes naturally,” Giuliacci said. “She’s just bigger, stronger now. She can turn on a ball any time she wants and just put it over. She would rather put down a bunt and beat it out, and then be able to run bases. That’s how she gets her excitement. She loves to hit one out but she would rather be on those bases causing havoc. And I have to, every once in a while, remind her: Turn on one.”

Trierweiler did just that in her first at-bat last Thursday. Sitting on 192 career hits, she led off the game with a long triple to right field that one-hopped the wall.

As Giuliacci described, though, Trierweiler also reveled in her small-ball sensibilities. After her record-tying single in the second inning, she stole second base. And in her next plate appearance, she laid down a textbook sacrifice bunt.

All these tactical decisions are hers to make, Giuliacci said. Even on the sacrifice bunt, Giuliacci said he didn’t give her a sign, knowing Trierweiler is so in tune with game situations, she knows precisely when to do what and how.

“I let her do her own thing because she scouts the defense and she knows what she is going to do,” Giuliacci said. “I never give her a sign.”