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SLAP SHOT: Redbank Valley Senior LeighAnn Hetrick Emerges as Dangerous Offensive Weapon for Bulldogs With Unique Approach at the Plate

NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. (EYT/D9) — LeighAnn Hetrick was an average hitter from the right side of the plate.

(Photos by Madison McFarland)

The senior center fielder on the Redbank Valley softball team certainly had her moments in the box from the right side, but she realized she wasn’t going to reach her true potential playing it safe.

“I was OK,” Hetrick admitted. “I never got very far with it.”

She was just another player with another standard right-handed swing. Hetrick’s softball career wasn’t progressing how she had hoped, and if she wanted to change that, she couldn’t keep doing what everyone else was doing.

So when the Bulldog coaching staff approached Hetrick with a proposition in the heart of this winter, she leapt at it.

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Redbank Valley, Keystone, and Union/A-C Valley sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Heeter Lumber.

“The coaches suggested I try to start to slap hitting,” Hetrick said. “I was fast and they thought it would put me in a better position to play and make and impact.”

Hetrick was sold. She went to work on the ins and outs of slap hitting — a dying art in high school softball.

Once upon a time, when the pitching circle was three feet closer to the plate in the prep ranks, slap hitting was popular — just about every team had one.

It was an effective weapon against dominating pitchers, which were everywhere.

Since the high school circle in Pennsylvania was moved three feet back to match the college and travel ball game in 2011, the need for slap hitting has seen a precipitous drop.

But for Hetrick, it revitalized her career.

She quickly went to work learning the unique craft, which involves positioning deep in the box from the left side of the plate and running up to meet the pitch, almost like a swinging bunt. There’s timing involved and extreme bat-control skill.

When it’s executed well, it can be nearly impossible to defend.

“It was definitely strange,” said Hetrick, who had never slap hit before. “I’ve pretty much been practicing it since open gyms in January and February — basically every time we’ve had batting practice.”

Hetrick said, surprisingly, it didn’t take her long to grasp the basics.

When the season started, though, Hetrick got off to a slow start.

She went hitless in her first two games and was batting just .250 through Redbank Valley’s first five contests.

Then, things began to click.

“In open gyms, she was impressing us,” said first-year Redbank Valley coach Lee Miller. “Then the first couple of games she struggled a bit in live action. But the last six or seven games, she’s been on an absolute tear.”

Over the last seven games, Hetrick is hitting .591 (13 of 22) with eight runs scored and 12 stolen bases.

For the season, she is batting .457 and has swiped 19 bags.

Her speed is her biggest weapon.

It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the defense, which has to play the infield in and the third baseman almost close enough to the plate to give a high-five to the catcher.

Hetrick has developed an uncanny ability to find the dead spots in the defense with her burgeoning advanced slap hitting skills.

“She’s actually gotten a couple of hits this year where defenses have cheated way in and she bloops it right over the top of the third baseman’s head perfectly.”

Hetrick is following in the footsteps of another Redbank Valley player who began slap hitting as a senior, Gabby Dinger, who batted .577 and stole nine bases last season in 10 games.

“Last year (Hetrick) was stuck behind those 10 seniors we had and this year when I took over I wanted to find another slap hitter like Gabby because Gabby was such a weapon,” Miller said. “The first open gym we lined them all up and had them run to see who was the fastest and (Hetrick) won.”

Hetrick bats No. 2 in the order, unusual for a slap hitter, who usually hits leadoff.

There’s a method to Miller’s madness.

With freshman Mackenzie Foringer hitting in the No. 1 hole, Miller believes if she can get on, there’s even more pressure and difficulty for a defense to defend a slap hitter in the second spot in the order.

Miller has even toyed with the idea of teaching Foringer the art of the slap to have two of them at the top of the order.

“She’s flirted with it a little bit,” Miller said. “She can fill that role maybe next season.”

Hetrick said she doesn’t have plans to attend college. She wants to be an electrician.

That means this is likely it for her softball career.

She’s grateful she gets to go out with a bang.

Or in this case, a slap.

“I’ve never had an opportunity like this before,” Hetrick said. “So it feels good to go up there and go 3-for-3 and help us win some games. I was totally down for it. I mean, it’s fun to do. It’s something different and it gave me something different to do. I can help the team way more doing this.”

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Redbank Valley, Keystone, and Union/A-C Valley sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Heeter Lumber.