SLIDESHOW | Focus factor: Mount Si’s Alex Johnson zeroes in on getting back to state
April 30, 2010
By Dan Catchpole
NEW — 12:35 p.m. April 30, 2010
Focus factor: Mount Si's Alex Johnson zeroes in on getting back to state
Don’t let the ribbon in her hair fool you. Mount Si’s Alex Johnson is a fierce competitor when she toes the rubber for Wildcats softball. She isn’t going to let any batter push her around.
As the team’s go-to pitcher, the junior’s carried a lot of weight this year, and with a couple of exceptions, she’s dominated opposing teams.
Johnson’s settling down into her role as ace and letting her talent work for her. While she feeds on pressure situations, she admits she struggles with her focus when it comes to practice.
After being named to the all-conference second team last year, Johnson wants to get Mount Si back to the state championship this year. She’s also already talking with several colleges about their softball programs.
“There’ve been some times when I’ve hated it, but it’s what I want to do in college,” she said.
At the center of things
Players can take many paths to the pitching rubber, but for Johnson, it was a straight line. She started pitching when she was eight and hasn’t looked back.
As the pitcher, she is the catalyst for the team; her hand is on every play.
“I like to be at the center of everything that goes on,” Johnson said after a recent throwing session.
She’s put in countless hours since turning to pitching. Most of it has been spent under the tutelage of her father, who stressed velocity than accuracy.
And Johnson throws fast – fast enough to leave most batters swinging at air or weakly connecting for an easy out.
She has a full repertoire of pitches and speeds to throw at opponents: rising and dropping fastball, cuveball, screwball, and rising and dropping change up. The breaking balls she can throw as fast as her fastball, or she can take something off them to catch batters off guard.
Aggressive style
Johnson doesn’t waste pitches, either, but aggressively goes after batters.
“If you get strike one, you have the batter already,” she said.
It takes a certain mindset to be a successful pitcher, and she has it, say her coaches.
“She’s got just enough of an attitude to be an effective pitcher,” coach Larry White said.
Johnson goes into every game thinking she can strikeout any of the opposing batters, she said.
She showed she can against Mercer Island April 14, when she fanned 12 batters — tying her career high. She followed that performance by striking out eight Liberty batters the next day.
To be effective, Johnson has to stay focused on the play at hand.
“You have to brush off the bad stuff and shut down the next batter,” assistant coach Traci Tawney said.
If a player, especially a pitcher, can’t do that, it can sink a team. One bad play can distract the player on the next one, which then gets messed up. It becomes a cascade of mistakes.
“You have to take that fallen domino out” before it brings every domino down, Tawney said.
But that doesn’t mean Johnson doesn’t let bad pitches upset her.
“After you walk a batter, you can’t get down on yourself,” she said. Instead she takes her frustration and uses it on the next batter.
There have been times, though, when Johnson hasn’t been able to brush off mistakes. She didn’t pull out the fallen domino in the Wildcats’ last meeting with Juanita, which the Rebels won 13-0.
“Once they start hitting you, I start thinking I need to do better,” Johnson said. “It just got to me.”
She gave up seven walks, 14 hits and 11 earned runs — all career highs.
Johnson also had another chance to see Juanita’s Kylie Sparks, who was the league’s most valuable player last year and edged out Johnson for the all-league first team.
White doesn’t doubt that Johnson has what it takes to compete with Sparks, a senior, and is happy to give her the ball every start.
“Our record’s 8-4; without AJ, we probably wouldn’t be a .500 team,” he said.
Johnson could be as good as Kandis Clesson, who helped lead the Wildcats to the state championships in 2005, White said.
This year, Mount Si has the most experience and talent the team’s had since then.
“I couldn’t do it without a team that good,” she said.
They help her stay focused with constant communication.
Though sometimes when the team is cruising to a win, the on-field conversation can veer to off-field topics, said second baseman Megan Stone, a close friend of Johnson.
Shouldering the load
With the team’s other starting pitcher, sophomore Anisa Wingsness, injured, Johnson finds herself doing something that Clesson, now a junior at Idaho State University, did: pitching every inning of every game.
But the workload isn’t too much for her arm thanks to her smooth delivery, she said.
Tawney, who’s new to the program, watched her during a pitching session recently. The former University of Washington softball player is helping with calling pitches, among other things.
Pitchers have to be flexible in their approach.
“If the first pitch is blown, you have to reset with the batter” and try something else, Tawney said.
That takes focus, something which Johnson has no problem with during game time. But, Johnson admits it can be a struggle the rest of the time.
“No teenager wants to practice four or five times a week,” she said, while fiddling with her mitt.
But she knows that to be successful, especially on the college level, requires a lot of practice.
“The girl who decides to be a pitcher has to put a lot of hours into it,” White said.
Johnson’s willing to log the hours because she loves pitching.
“I hate practicing pitching, but I love playing in the game,” Johnson said.
Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.
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