Daily Journal Softball Player of the Year: Sequoia’s Ainsley Waddell

Be it the left-handed hitter’s .595 batting average — ranking 10th in the CCS — or the southpaw’s program record 254 strikeouts, Waddell doesn’t distinguish between doing one or the other. So far as she’s concerned, it’s all just playing ball.

“I think it’s so much fun,” Waddell said. “I mean, I love pitching, but hitting is just so much fun too. It’s just been a great experience to do both, like to give up a run, and then score a run hitting, it’s just really fun.”

Waddell is a clear choice as Daily Journal Softball Player of the Year, and that’s really saying something. Her PAL Bay Division rival, Capuchino senior Nohemi Livingston, did enough to have won the award in most other seasons. Cap’s two-way standout ranked second in the PAL in strikeouts, while placing fourth in the PAL Bay Division batting race. Not to mention Cap shared the PAL Bay Division championship with Carlmont.

The two seniors even split the PAL’s two top honors this season, with Livingston being named the Bay Division Pitcher of the Year — Livingston did beat Waddell twice in both the teams’ head-to-head matchups — while Waddell was named Bay Division Player of the Year.

The Ravens, despite finishing in third place in the PAL Bay, one game back of first, still earned one of league’s two berths in the CCS Open Division postseason tournament. It was Sequoia’s first-ever Open Division appearance, and as the No. 7 seed nearly pulled off an upset, falling to No. 2 Mitty 3-2 in extra innings.

“That Mitty performance was outstanding,” Sequoia head coach Michelle Sarrail said. “She faced some really tough hitters, and it was definitely our toughest game of the year, and she rose up to it and just fired on all cylinders.”

Amid the Ohtani era, Waddell certainly knows who the Los Angeles Angels superstar is. In the pitching circle, though, she is perhaps more comparable to a classic player she admittedly has never heard of — Los Angeles Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela.

Valenzuela was famed for his unique expression while in his windup, with his eyes staring straight up at the sky before delivering the baseball. Waddell has a similar seemingly distracted expression, only hers is closing her eyes just before she releases the softball.

“When I close my eyes, it’s not really intentional,” Waddell said. “I just try to relax, trust my pitches. … I’m not trying to aim it. I just try to trust what I throw.”

At the plate, it’s a different story for Waddell, who stares down opposing pitchers with fire in her eyes. Regarded as an exceptional contact hitter — Waddell struck out just two times in 74 at-bats this season — she has really upped her power game in recent years. She has led Sequoia in batting average in each of her four varsity seasons, and this year hit safely in 23 of the team’s 24 games while capturing her first team triple crown.

“She worked offensively on being a more complete hitter, and it really contributed to her overall success offensively,” Sarrail said.

Much of Waddell’s work is done during the club softball season. For the past five years, she has played for the prestigious Cal Nuggets, where she plays for Burlingame graduate and former Cal softball slugger Haley Woods. Waddell credited Woods for helping her refine her batting approach, and for maximizing her pitching repertoire, as Woods calls pitches during Nuggets games.

Waddell joined the Cal Nuggets when she was 12, leaving behind many of her childhood friends she grew up playing with during her time with the San Carlos Force. When Waddell arrived at Sequoia, though, she was reunited with those friends — Emerson Seevers, Claire Sarrail, Mackenzie Jackson, Cassy Chin and Gigi Odum — who she started playing with when she was 8.

“It was just so much fun,” Waddell said. “I’ve just known them for so long, it was a really cool experience to get to play with them again.”

In her first outing with Sequoia as a freshman, however, things didn’t go so well. It was an unofficial game, a scrimmage against Aragon, but Waddell remembers vividly surrendering a home run to now-University of Arizona slugger Olivia DiNardo in Sequoia’s 20-1 loss. Waddell bounced back last season, though, as Sequoia defeated Aragon 3-0 in her final head-to-head matchup with DiNardo and now-UCLA freshman Megan Grant, with the two Lady Dons stars going 1 for 4 in the game, their worst combined batting line on the season.

Now, Waddell is set to embark on her own collegiate career. She is set to play NCAA Division I softball next season at UC Santa Barbara. The plan is for her to play both ways.

“She’s already focused and working on that mental game … because she’s going to take things up to the next level when she’s playing DI softball,” Sarrail said. “It also helps, she’s going to a school where, if she’s not the only one, she’s one of very few left-handed pitchers on their squad. So, that’s going to be a real benefit to UCSB as well.”

Waddell very nearly extended her Sequoia career in the team’s CCS playoff opener. She homered in the second inning, a two-run shot, to give the Ravens a 2-0 lead. With Sequoia leading by one run in the sixth, however, Mitty tied it on a McKenna Woliczko single. Woliczko — who is teammates with Waddell on the Cal Nuggets — went on to score the winning run when Mia Rodriguez drove her home to end Sequoia’s season with the walk-off. The Ravens’ 3-2 loss was the only one-run game of the PAL Open Division tournament.

“Definitely going to CCS was a huge accomplishment, especially the Open Division,” Waddell said. “So, that was just a huge moment. And then playing against Mitty was just a really huge moment, because I was so proud of our team to even come close to beating such a highly ranked and amazing team.”