Pitcher Paige McDuffee puts team and community pride first at The Woodlands

Despite all the accolades, the honors, the attention and the headlines, it takes only a few minutes talking with Paige McDuffee to realize softball is all about team for her.

It was ever so noticeable after top-rated The Woodlands (Texas) won the Region 11-5A Championship to earn its first trip to the Texas state tournament. That victory came just two hours after The Woodlands lost for the first time in 42 games in 2011.

"I'm so excited, all I can do is cry," said McDuffee, a finalist for MaxPreps' National High School Softball Player of the Year award. "We're headed to state for the first time."

McDuffee is having a dream season. The lefthander has earned two MaxPreps weekly top player awards and has compiled a record of 33-0 with an ERA of 0.68. She has 214 strikeouts against only 21 walks in 186 innings pitched. At the plate, McDuffee is hitting .411 and averaging an RBI per game.

But McDuffee knows the only pitch that matters is the "next" one, though reflecting on the "last" one sure has been enjoyable. The last one was striking out the final batter in the Region 11 game that sent The Woodlands to state.

"Nothing has ever been this intense before," she said after her team took two of three from rival Tomball High School. "This is just crazy ... so exciting. I can't think of any other games that compare. We were in it to win it every single play of the game."

Those are big words coming from one of the best prep softball players in the United States. She's been on many big stages before as her summer club and fall teams have challenged for national titles.

This was different. It was about school and community pride. The Woodlands and Tomball are neighboring communities and many of the girls on each team regularly play against one another or are travel ball teammates during summer and fall play.

"Travel ball is more about recruiting. School ball is about pride, teammates, getting to state," said McDuffee, a 5-9 lefthanded junior who has committed to UCLA.

McDuffee was an all-state player as a sophomore when she was 27-3 with 253 strikeouts in 182 innings and a microscopic earned run average of 0.15 (only four earned runs allowed). She also batted .458 with 28 runs batted in.

"The crowds were huge for all three games. Every pitch was intense," said McDuffee, who carries an A grade point average.

After winning the opener of the three-game series, 5-3, the Highlanders lost game two, 9-8. They shook the 9-8 defeat - their first defeat of the season - and held on to beat Tomball in Saturday night's final 9-7. Nothing in the final game was as intense as the last four Tomball batters McDuffee faced.

"They are the best hitting team in the state," said Woodlands coach Richard Jorgensen. "But I could see the look in Paige's eyes. She was determined. She wasn't going to let her team down.

"I turned to our assistant coach and said ‘It's over.' She wasn't going to be denied," said Jorgensen, a finalist for MaxPreps' Female Sport Coach of the Year. "She was phenomenal."

McDuffee said, "I knew they (Tomball) could come back and if they did we wouldn't have a chance as they were home team. I reared back. It was such a great feeling winning and now we're going to state. This team has really grown, really come together. It such a special feeling."

For the most part, it is the same team that lost in the fourth round of the 5A playoffs a year ago. That was McDuffee's last loss as a prep.

In what she called probably the "worst softball" feeling in the world, the Highlanders led 4-0 with two outs in bottom of the seventh and lost, 5-4.

"We didn't have the mental side of the game last year," said McDuffee. "We had talent to win the game. We do (have the mental side) this year and I am so proud to be part of this team. Even though we lost our first game, we came back. It helped us learn more about ourselves and how badly we wanted it."

Jorgensen, who said he's never had a better player, notes that McDuffee's team-first attitude is genuine. "She's no prima donna," he said. "She's humble and doesn't really like the limelight. She's quite shy. She is a team-oriented person. She's the hardest worker on the team and doesn't want to be treated differently. A coach couldn't ask for a better kid than her."

Those traits come from her parents, Scott and Dawn McDuffee. Scott is best known for his positive and loud support at the ballpark where he is frequently heard saying, "Hey, hey, hey ... find a way."

Though he has many quotations he shares with his daughter, one touches Paige in everything she does:

"If it is something you truly want to do, give it everything."

Quick-witted, Scott said that "Sure was tricky when she wanted to be on the chess team in fourth grade." 

Paige said the parental support has been "huge," noting that she is very hard on herself. Those who know her wholeheartedly agree.

"Being a true competitor, she already knows when she goofed up," said Scott. "She doesn't need an over officious grown-up to tell her."

He said they have two approaches - listen and laugh.

"First, as difficult as it may be, allow the silence. Don't quiz. Don't question. She'll speak when she is ready. Don't make her relive it unless she needs to via talking through it. Then, and only then, we try to find the humor in the situation. Don't think everything has to be a teachable moment - not easy sometimes. At that point, it's the relationship, not the results, which matter."

That parental support began at an early age when Paige began playing softball before she began school. She was a hitting terror right from the start, but didn't get into pitching until she was 11. And that was partly because of her shyness.

"I used to go to tournaments and watch the older girls and it looked like so much fun," said Paige. "I went to a camp with a friend and she was a catcher. They split the players up and sent the pitchers and catchers in one direction, outfielders and infielders in another. I was too shy to go with the infielders, so I went with the catcher as a pitcher. They said I had speed as a 10-year-old."

She started pitching the next year. And as they say, the rest is newsmaking. That speed is rapidly approaching 70 mph. She throws all the pitches - rise, drop, curve, curve drop, screw and changeup.

"As her passion for pitching grew, we also tried to get her the best pitching coaches available - Amy Pack, Dan Carter, Sherry Werner, and now Bobby Smith," said Scott, who noted that Smith was also Olympian Cat Osterman's coach.
 
While some say they spotted her talent as an 8-year-old member of the Plum Crazy U-8 team, Scott said he knew when Paige was 3 that she had special talents. "She had a whiffle ball bat knocking ‘home runs' from either side of the plate. She just loved to play ball. Her passion showed way back then."

Paige grabbed attention as a freshman at Mansfield High School, where she was the District MVP. She followed that sterling season with outstanding travel seasons, then all-state sophomore honors at The Woodlands.

The recruiting chase was on. She visited LSU and fell in love with the program and coach Yvette Girourd, but had a change of heart when Girourd "suddenly" retired.

"It changes everything when you don't know who your coach is going to be," said Paige.

Then UCLA called and invited her to visit. In Paige's words, "that was just amazing.

"They have such an amazing staff and Lisa Fernandez will be my pitching coach. I love their philosophy. I was blown away. And I've loved California. I want to be an All-American and Fernandez is the person who can help me reach my potential."

Paige said Fernandez asked her if she wanted to focus on speed or movement. Paige said "both."

But her career at UCLA is still more than a year way. First order of business are finals and maintaining her high grade point average.

After that is the UIL Class 5A State Softball Championships to be played Friday and Saturday on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

And with her teammates "first and foremost," it's no surprise The Woodlands maintains its No. 1 ranking in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 National Softball Rankings and is seeded No. 1 at state.