Softball Player of the Year: Carlmont’s Mailey McLemore

This spring, McLemore put an exclamation point on her high school career, leading the Scots to an undefeated Bay Division title while being among the best in CCS in the pitcher’s circle and at the plate.

Her performance has earned McLemore the Daily Journal’s Softball Player of the Year honors.

“Mailey (pronounced: My-lee) really doesn’t have a weakness in her game. Offensively, pitching, defensively. She’s just an all-around player,” Carlmont head coach Marco Giuliacci said.

An outstanding hitter her entire Carlmont career, McLemore finished second in the PAL Bay Division with a .516 average, but was first in slugging with a 1.064. Her 34 RBIs were third in the league while she finished tied for third in home runs with six.

“Coaches just feared her (offensively),” Giuliacci said.

The fact of the matter is, as well as McLemore was offensively this season, she could have been even better considering she got the Barry Bonds Treatment for most of the year — getting one pitch an at-bat, or per game, to actually hit.

To see her true value to the Scots’ offense, look no further than the 22 walks she was issued this season. No. 2 on Carlmont’s walks list? Bianca Vitale, who walked six times.

If anything, all those walks made her even more focused at the plate, as she had an onbase-plus-slugging percentage mark of 1.693 and only struck out once.

“I had to step up and take advantage. I knew I was only going to get one pitch to hit, so I had to be ready when I got it,” McLemore said.

Giuliacci said he had heard another coach was planning on walking McLemore every time the clean-up hitter came to the plate. Giuliacci countered that by batting McLemore leadoff.

“[The opposing coach] did not walk her,” Giuliacci said. “I kept waiting for someone to do the Barry Bonds and walk her with the bases loaded. … [St. Ignatius] walked her in the bottom of the seventh in a 1-1 game.”

Carlmont would win that season-opening game 2-1 as McLemore homered in the fourth.

From the pitcher’s circle, McLemore emerged as one of the best in CCS. Her 18 wins this season was fourth-best in the entire section, while her ERA of 1.11 was fifth-best in CCS.

And while not known as a strikeout pitcher, McLemore still finished in the top 10 of CCS with 123.

“I love being able to [make a difference] on both sides of the ball,” McLemore said.

This was the first year that McLemore was the unquestioned No. 1 starter, as she split time her first three seasons. Her freshman year, she made 14 starts, going 10-3. Her sophomore year she went 7-0 in just nine starts. Last season, she went 13-1 in 15 starts. Her final season, she started 20 of the Scots’ 25 games, winning 90 percent.

“This year, she really wanted it. She came up to me this year and said: ‘What’s the game plan?’” Giuliacci said. “You look for that as coach. You want your star player to say that to you.”

A coach also wants a player who knows what works for them.While those pitchers who throw a ton of strikeouts tend to get a lot of accolades, McLemore was confident enough in her style of pitching and the play of the Carlmont defense behind her to remain a pitcher and not just a strikeout artist.

“She doesn’t have overwhelming speed, so she has to spin the ball a lot,” Giuliacci said. “And she spins the crap out of it.”

Said McLemore: “I just have to remind myself that what I do works. Clearly, it’s working pretty well.”

So not even a 3-1 loss to Mitty in the first round of the CCS Open Division could dampen an otherwise outstanding season. In fact, McLemore had a very reasoned reaction.

“I honestly feel that the CCS game was one of the best game we played,” McLemore said. “It just didn’t go our way.”

Everything else, however, went McLemore and Carlmont’s way in 2018.

“I just wanted to end senior year with a bang,” McLemore said. “Leave it all out on the field.”