Softball Player of the Year: James Wood's Lauren King

WINCHESTER — James Wood junior Lauren King didn’t really set any goals for herself during the season other than providing constant production for the Colonels.

She wanted to avoid the peaks and valleys that sometimes come in softball, whether it was with her hitting or pitching.

Considering King led the Colonels in pitching victories, strikeouts and earned-run average, and also ranked in the top three in the major offensive categories, she definitely did just that.

King went 10-1 with a 1.41 ERA with 93 strikeouts in 791/3 innings. Offensively, she and junior teammate Lindsey Anderson both set the single-season record by hitting .500 with 25 RBIs (second best for Wood) and 17 runs (third best).

“I just wanted to focus on consistency,” said King, a first team All-Conference 21 West selection as a pitcher. “I didn’t want to have one game that was really good and then one that was bad. I tried to stay pretty steady throughout the season, and I tried to focus more on my hitting.”

Although King — who is The Winchester Star’s Softball Player of the Year — has always been a solid hitter for the Colonels, her junior season was by far her best.

She led the Colonels with a team-high 34 hits in 68 at-bats. During her sophomore year, King hit .356 with 21 RBIs and 15 runs so she improved in all three categories.

James Wood coach Todd Baker said King’s improvement on offense probably is a direct result of how much time she devotes to the game.

“Her hitting really came around with a lot of hard work over the summer with her travel team, and I’m sure a lot of what we do in the offseason really helped her,” Baker said. “To bat .500, she and Lindsey tied for the school record as both of them broke it, that’s very impressive. I think she had a .565 on-base percentage.”

While hitting was a big part of her improvement, Baker said King really became a much more complete player in all facets of the game.

As a sophomore, King went 5-3 with a 1.69 ERA. She had 91 strikeouts in 54 innings.

Baker said perhaps King’s biggest step forward came in the pitcher’s circle.

She doubled her victories from last season and improved in strikeouts while lowering her ERA by .28.

“She’s always been a really good third baseman, but in the circle it was just her really becoming a pitcher,” Baker said. “Last year she threw extremely hard, but didn’t hit her spots well. This year she was hitting her spots, and she was changing speeds with a lot of good movement with her pitches.”

King delivered her best pitching performance with the Colonels’ season on the line against Sherando in the Conference 21 West tournament semifinals. She pitched a complete game, allowing just two hits while striking out seven in a 4-1 victory over the Warriors to help the Colonels advance to the conference championship game and earn a berth in the 4A West Region tournament.

“As far as a big game or a standout game it would have to be the last Sherando game,” said Baker, who noted that King received the team MVP award at the James Wood Athletic Association banquet. “She pitched all seven innings with seven Ks in a two hitter with only one earned run, which was a great performance against a very good offensive team. That was the biggest win and that’s what got us going in the right direction to regionals.”

Sherando coach Clarence Smith tipped his cap to King following the game.

“If you look at our game log — to hold us to one run is a pretty remarkable feat,” Smith said following the game. “That’s just a testament to how well she had it going [that day].

“Our hitters are pretty prolific and pretty disciplined and they were talking about her ball dancing all over the place. She runs it up there pretty hard, so she doesn’t give you a large margin for error. She got a lot of swinging strikes from us tonight, and she did a nice job of keeping our offense down.”

King said her two-hitter against Sherando probably was her best pitching performance, but she credited her teammates for a great season.

“I think we started out a little rough as far as being together as a team, but once the season went on and we kept winning we knew each other’s limits and kind of came together as a team,” said King, who currently plays for the Tri-State Thunder 18U travel team (that has players from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia on its roster) that’s based in the Spring Mills, W.Va., area. “I was very happy to know that I could have complete trust in my defense and just the team as a whole.”

Baker said King, who ended up being the winning pitcher in 10 of the Colonels’ 18 victories (the team finished 18-5 after a loss to Loudoun Valley in the first round of the 4A West Region tournament), wasn’t one of the team captains but did a great job leading by example.

“She pitched all the big games for us and never really let us down,” Baker said. “Her leadership qualities and just her attitude — she makes everybody around her better. When she comes to practice, she comes to work. If a [teammate] is not working, she’ll push [them].”

In the offseason, King plans to push herself to add another pitch to her four-pitch arsenal that includes a fastball, change-up, drop and riseball.

“I’m going to try to learn a curveball for next season,” King said. “I mainly go up and down in the [strike] zone, so I kind of want to mix in in and out.”

The Colonels graduate three seniors, including starting infielders Courteney Harper and Alyssa Brown, but King believes the Colonels can make another run at a regional berth next season.

“We’re definitely losing some important people, but the younger girls are getting more experience,” King said. “We’re just getting more talent for next year.”

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