Junior Pitcher Vanessa Strong Leads A Talented Freedom Roster Still Burning With Motivation Following An Emotional 2016 NCS Title Run.
Story By James G. Kane
It was, in retrospect, love at first sight.
The diamond. The ball. The strike zone. The target. And the batter, of course. Don’t forget the batter.
For Vanessa Strong, all of these things converged to stir her soul in the very first moments her aunt Sara Rhoads put a softball in her hand and started teaching her the basics of hurling it underhand and fast toward the big glove several feet away.
“There’s nothing like it,” she says. “I was hooked immediately.”
She was 6 then. Today, the Freedom-Oakley ace is a junior at one of the East Bay’s most formidable softball programs and one of the best pitchers in the North Coast Section. For hitters, a day against Strong is usually a weak one.
A year ago, she started 20 of Freedom’s 22 games, and won 17, including a 1-0, eight-inning win over Foothill in the North Coast Section Division I championship game. She earned Player of the Year honors from both the East Bay Times and San Francisco Chronicle.
She has 31 victories (and nine losses), a 1.98 ERA and 319 strikeouts in two varsity seasons and could have most of Freedom’s pitching records to herself by the time she’s finished in 2018.
“She’s a unique talent,” coach Brook Russo said.
Front to back: Senior INF Bri Ibarra, senior OF Marissa Gonzales, senior catcher Faith Derby and junior pitcher Vanessa Strong. (Phillip Walton photo)
But Strong’s rising star hasn’t changed her at the core, where she remains the little girl who just loves being on that pitching rubber with ball in her hand, hitter at the plate and a one-on-one battle looming.
“It’s been a passion,” she says. “It’s still a passion.”
To that end, she celebrated her ascension to the higher echelon of the Bay Area pitching chain — she had 176 strikeouts and allowed 95 base runners in 127 innings, and opponents hit .174 against her — by going to work. “A day or two” after pitching Freedom to its first NCS crown since 2008, she grabbed a ball and headed to the circle.
“Oh my God, it’s all the time,” catcher Faith Derby says of her battery partner’s practice habits. “It’s at least an hour every day. I don’t know, maybe more. It’s all we ever do. She’s always working at it, always trying to get better.”
Strong concurs that she’s not one to reflect and look back. She mostly talks only of what lies ahead, a defining personality in most athletic greats, and she says she has an additional source of motivation beyond her passion.
The spirit of Hayward police Sgt. Scott Lunger, a Falcons assistant coach slain during a traffic stop in July 2015, is always close to Strong and the team.
When Freedom completed it’s journey to the crown in their first full season without Lunger, “we thought of him immediately,” Strong says.
Now with a new season dawning, they think of him again. Russo acknowledges that each campaign is its own unique journey, not tied to previous or future ones. But the truth for this group of Freedom players is that Lunger remains a part of their identity.
The team’s defense, part of its foundation to success, routinely plays mistake-free ball thanks to drills designed by Lunger that they still practice over and over. When they’re finished, they put the balls back into the practice bucket dedicated to him.
In the dugout, players and coaches engage in knowing glances and observations that lets them know that Lunger is still there, just from a different place.
The 2016 Falcons celebrate the end to their season-long journey after winning the NCS Div. I final. (Dennis Lee photo)
“It’s just a very special group. It’s one of the best groups I’ve ever been able to coach,” Russo says. “As a group, they drew really close because of what happened, and they’re a mature bunch. When they show up, it’s not to fool around. They show up to go to work, and that translates onto the field when it’s time to play.”
Russo’s own journey in the days since the Lunger tragedy have entailed their own unique challenges. A former youth coach, Russo said Lunger’s friendship and influence were essential in helping him get there. He was a member of Lunger’s wedding party.
“Personally, as a coach, it’s been very, very tough,” he says. “Something comes up, or something happens that we normally would discuss, I always want to pick up the phone and reach out to him. We still just kind of go one day at a time with it. But the girls know the best way to honor him is to play the way they play.”
The truth for the Falcons also is this: They can win a game many ways.
“All we need is a spark,” senior Marissa Gonzales said. “Once we get a spark, then we rally. A lot of times it happens at the end.”
So it was in the NCS title game. Freedom broke a scoreless deadlock in the eighth inning of that contest when Allyson Ferreira doubled in Mackinsey Nelson for the run that gave the Falcons their first NCS crown since 2008. Nelson pinch ran for Kalissa Heihn, who’d opened the eighth inning with a single.
“We won a lot of games like that,” Russo says. “Our pitching and defense are going to keep us in the game, and then we seem to get timely hitting.”
Freedom has no shortage of offensive weapons. Derby led the Bay Valley Athletic League with five home runs and 23 RBIs a season ago, and she has clubbed eight with 44 RBIs over the past two seasons.
Allyson McBroom connects with a pitch during the NCS Div. I championship game. (Dennis Lee photo)
The job she’s done defensively behind the dish hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. She’s worked with Strong for the past three seasons, handles all six of Strong’s pitches — peel drop (fastball), drop, a rise, a curve, a screwball/drop and change-up — with equal aplomb.
Allyson McBroom had a team-best 27 hits and batted .409. She scored 13 runs and drove in another 15. A first baseman, shortstop and catcher, McBroom didn’t make an error all last season in 102 chances.
Then there’s Allyson Ferreira, who contributed 24 hits, 12 RBIs and 13 runs. She hit .358 in 73 plate appearances and has 41 hits and a .369 average in two varsity seasons. Senior infielder Bri Ibarra provided 21 hits with 12 runs scored and 12 driven in.
Gonzales, a senior, had 26 hits last season, and her .433 average was a 201-point improvement from her cumulative mark over her first two season.
Not to be overlooked, Strong hit .423 with four doubles and 13 RBIs, too.
If the offense doesn’t click right away and hitters make contact against Strong, Freedom’s defense is just as capable of winning games.
“We don’t make errors,” McBroom says. “And we have pretty good range.”
In other words, Freedom can win a game a lot of ways. In the end, however, Strong is the heart that pumps the blood. Which is the way she’s always wanted it, ever since she was 6 and Rhoads, a former Antioch High star, gave Strong her first lesson.
“I loved being in control and being involved in every play,” Strong says. “I loved being able to have a big role in my team winning. I still love it.”
The velocity of Strong’s pitches, not to mention the variety of them, are impressive weapons to begin with, but her teammates and coaches say they aren’t her biggest strengths.
Strong agrees.
“It’s my focus and demeanor,” she says. “If I give up a hit or something goes wrong, I have to keep it together, because the team is looking for that. If I keep it together, than we’ll keep it together.”
Says Russo: “The girls take their cue from her. And she’s just so steady. It’s hard to beat that.”
In 2017, it figures only to be harder.