Castilleja (Palo Alto, Calif.) senior softball pitcher Samantha "Sammy" Albanese is such a master craftsman that she not only mesmerizes opposing batters, but even home-plate umpires.
Samantha Albanese, Castilleja
File photo by David Cardinal
Coach Robert Burley told an umpire following a recent game, "You missed a couple of calls."
The umpire replied rather sheepishly, "I actually forgot I was umpiring. I caught myself watching."
Her Sorcerer Softball Club travel coach, Phil Mumma, adds, "Sometimes, you can see an umpire flinch. They aren’t expecting the ball to move as late as it does. She is a virtuoso at that."
Albanese concedes, "That happens quite a few times. I almost have to laugh it off. A lot of umpires aren’t used to movement. It kind of messes them up."
Opponents have been even more helpless this spring as Albanese tied a national record by firing a phenomenal 10 consecutive no-hitters. The record was set in 2004 by Angelica Selden of Travis Air Force Base (Vanden, Calif.).
During the streak, Albanese struck out 150 batters and fired three perfect games. She also struck out 22 during a 2-0 victory over rival Mercy-Burlingame – just two under the national record for a seven-inning contest. On her next start she extended the streak to 27 consecutive strikeouts before the streak was broken.
The hitless streak ended during a 2-0 loss to Palo Alto, which received a no-hitter from its pitcher, Kelly Jenks. Lauren Bucolo, a teammate on the Sorcerer team, got the dreaded hit, which Albanese called "a little dinker over second base," as the third batter in the first inning.
"At first I was a little disappointed," Albanese admitted. "I knew I had tied the national record. Anything more was just icing on the cake. You have to flush it down the toilet (shake it off), because one pitch affects the next pitch."
The 5-foot-8 star calls her record "surreal. It’s amazing. It’s really nice to see my hard work pay off. It’s really rewarding. I only take one or two days off a week."
Albanese insists she did not know she had 10 straight no-hitters until she was told she had tied the California record, which also is the national record. She explained, "I don’t like to know my statistics, because I’m really superstitious. I didn’t even know I had two in a row. If I had known, there would have been more pressure that I would have placed on myself."
She’s probably always faced pressure on the diamond, however, because as she points out, "I always was the youngest on my (travel) team, because I always played up."
It’s no wonder she’s so dominant because she has good command of five pitches. After developing pitches with a lot of movement during her younger years (she started pitching at age 8), she has gotten stronger with maturity and now also is a power pitcher.
"The first one I learned was the drop ball," Albanese noted. "My fast ball is really my drop ball. For me, the rise took the longest to master. It’s got a lot of backspin instead of topspin. It could be two years before you’re able to use it in a game.
"My drop is my most consistent pitch, but when my rise is working, it’s extremely effective."
She supplements those two "out" pitches with a curve, screwball and changeup. Burley, in his first year of coaching at Castilleja, an all-girls school of 240 students in grades 9-12, says Albanese "throws hard but with a lot of movement. Her rise ball is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty devastating."
The talented right-hander is in a somewhat unusual situation, because in high school she still pitches from the standard 40-foot distance, even though many states have backed the mound to 43 feet. However, she does throw from 43 feet for her travel team, which won the 18 Gold National Championship last summer in Oklahoma City (Okla.).
"That was a once-in-a-lifetime feat," she exclaimed.
Because she relies more on movement than speed, Albanese says the three-foot variation "is not a big difference. It’s all mechanics. At 40 feet I try not to lean over quite as far.
"In high school I go mostly with my drop and rise. Travel ball requires more mixing it up. The hitters are better. You have to change their sight lines more often."
With three regular-season games and the state playoffs still ahead, Albanese has a shot at more records. During her four-year high school career, she has compiled a 58-12-1 record with 1,113 strikeouts and a microscopic 0.27 earned-run average. She has thrown 15 perfect games – five short of the national record – and 48 shutouts. She also has a sizzling .589 batting average.
Her record this year is 15-2-1 (losses were 1-0 and 2-0) with 292 strikeouts – an incredible average of 19.4 per seven-inning game – and a 0.06 ERA. She has 15 shutouts and 14 no-hitters, seven short of the national record. She is hitting a lofty .615 and has driven in 47 runs.
Coach Burley likes to point out that following her only two losses this year, "She was the first girl to encourage the other girls."
Her most spectacular performance may have come during her junior year, in which she struck out 37 of a possible 47 batters during a 14-inning game against Sequoia.
"That was the game that would never end," she laughed.
Albanese, who carries a 3.7 GPA, will attend Northwestern University in the fall. She is unsure of a major, but her favorite high school subject is math.
Mumma said that after being in the shadow of National Player of the Year Keilani Ricketts, Albanese will be his No. 1 pitcher this summer. He calls her "maybe the most underrated pitcher in the nation. She has made herself as close to her real potential as any player I’ve ever had.
"Sammy is just a really good teammate. She never complains about anything. She is a really tenacious player and poised way beyond her years. She’s going to Northwestern and has an outstanding chance to be their No. 1 pitcher next year."
Don’t be shocked if she winds up on Dancing With The Stars some day. She belongs to a local dance team which has taken part in the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and has performed several times at halftime of a Golden State Warriors NBA game.
“I’ve been dancing since I was three years old – tap, jazz, modern,” she pointed out. “This is my release from softball. I’d like to be a Rockette when I get older,” she said only half jokingly.
