Best of the Best: Clarion Senior Hoping to Cap Stellar Softball Career With Another Big Campaign

This is one in a series of articles highlighting some of the best players in the area heading into the 2022 high school softball season.

CLARION, Pa. — It’s Jordan Best’s final high school softball season.

Sometimes she wonders where the time has gone. She remembers strapping on the catcher’s gear for the first time all the way back in the fourth grade.

The bumps and bruises from foul balls ricocheting off her equipment – and catching a thumb or a shoulder or a leg – are still vivid reminders of the demands of the position.

Best is, well, at her Best behind the plate, as well as at it as a hitter.

Last year, the senior on the Clarion softball team turned in a stellar all-around season, batting .432 with eight home runs, 35 RBIs and 37 runs scored.

Defensively, Best has a strong arm — runners dare not steal against her often — and also a complete command of the game.

She’s the unquestioned leader of a Clarion team looking to make more noise in 2022.

“I love that role,” Best said, smile beaming. “I wouldn’t want to play any other position. I love having that control.”

And Best has been granted a lot of it.

She has the enormous responsibility of calling all the pitches during a game — a rare job for a catcher at the high school level. But she does it skillfully.

The goals Best and the Bobcats have set for the season show just how good they believe Clarion can be.

“We always make a list at the beginning of the year of our team goals,” Best said. “KSAC champs, district champs. There’s also a couple of teams that we want to beat like C-L is one, Moniteau is one, Cranberry. Then, individually, I just want to play confident this year and play the best that I can because it’s my last season. I want to go all out.”

Best, who will play softball at Gannon University next spring, is accustomed to winning.

As a member of the Clarion volleyball team as a libero, she won two PIAA Class A championships.

During the basketball season, Best was also a force on a Bobcat team that made a strong, late-season push. She averaged 9.8 points per game.

It has forged an unyielding belief in herself, which is no more apparent than when she steps up to the plate.

“The biggest thing for me is just getting in the box and having confidence,” Best said. “Coach (Dan) Shofestall is always saying the key thing to keep in your head is, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m going to hit this ball and if it comes in and it’s not a strike, I’ll let it go.’ Hitting, for me, is all confidence. You have to be convinced you’re gonna have a good at-bat.”

Best has plenty of chemistry with her teammates. Many of them have also played volleyball and basketball, players like Noel Anthony, an all-state setter in volleyball who batted .554 with 15 doubles, 34 runs scored and 11 stolen bases last season on the softball field.

“We are with each other all the time,” Best said. “Me and Payton Simko, Noel Anthony and Kylee (Beers) have been playing softball since we were in minor league together, even if we weren’t on the same team. We just know how we all play.”

Of course there was one year where there was no softball for anyone.

Best lost a season two years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic scuttled the spring sports season. That idle year still bothers Best.

“I only get three high school seasons,” Best said. “It’s made me want to make the most out of every single season. It makes you value the time on the softball field.”