LJ FH: Honing the hitting

By Ed Piper

If Cooper McNally needs to make adjustments to his batting swing, he will work with Viking baseball coach Gary Frank or another hitting expert to tweak it as needed.

This was a real-life situation last Spring, as McNally, returning from an effective sophomore year on the La Jolla High varsity, entered his junior season no longer as an unknown who could catch opposing pitchers off guard.

Early in the 2019 season, he was meeting new challenges at the plate, because opposing coaches had done their homework and were pitching him differently than the year before.

Over a period of weeks, Cooper worked at changing his approach. As a result, he experienced renewed success as the schedule unfolded.

Now, switch with me to the Vikings' field hockey team this Fall. Caeley Hickson Long, starting upper midfielder for third-year coach Amanda Combs Warford, stated that the team has been focusing on stick skills a lot lately.

This is important, because, if you haven't noticed, the Vikings are on a tear opening the 2019 campaign, winning the Valley Center Tournament championship a week ago, powered by a 12-1-2 won-lost record.

Warford affirmed her captain's statement. "We've been doing a lot of hitting and trapping in practice," she said Sat., Sept. 14, as the heat rose under the red LJHS team awning on the Serra High campus, a prelude to three straight games the Vikings would engage in in pool play on day one of that tournament.

In the opening match at 11 a.m., warm by any standards, forward Haley Mossmer demonstrated direct results from the extra emphasis on stick skills. Besides being confident and extremely aggressive moving near the La Costa Canyon goal, her hitting was strong, with a powerful motion. And it was loud.

When a field hockey player is smacking the ball, you can hear it. You don't have to be right next to the field, as I was in the Serra stadium, scant yards away from the 5'7" senior as she made things difficult for the Maverick defenders.

Mossmer netted one goal within the first three minutes. The surprise was that more goals--either by Haley, or her teammates--didn't ensue. The 1-0 score held up through 60 hot minutes of competition, and the Vikings, potential winners of the Serra tournament like the one at Valley Center, were one-third done for the day.

What caught my attention as a sports person was the similarity in skills between the two sports. Cooper McNally, who hits from the left side of the plate, and Noah Brown, a pure right-hander, would look to Frank or another coach with bat expertise to solve a problem, change a habit, try to cover part of the plate that is proving to be a gap in the hitter's swing.

In the same way, Hickson Long, or Mossmer, or Serene Liu (though she's on defense) spend specific time under their coaches' direction to improve their hitting technique.

If you've seen a field hockey game, you know the common gaffes: swinging the stick and hitting too low, thudding with the turf; or swinging in an arc aimed too high, missing the ball completely. Those are the most common ones I've seen.

Plus the hockey stick has a unique characteristic. It isn't like a baseball bat, which is round and symmetrical, the same shape on each side. The instrument used in field hockey is only made to be swung forward for a right-hander. To hit a ball with the back side of the stick, you have to lean down closer to the turf and move the stick parallel to the plane of the playing field to hit the ball. You're not allowed--and I don't think it would be particularly effective--to just swing the opposite way and strike the ball with the reverse side of the stick. The back of the stick isn't shaped like the front.

Each of these skills takes a while to learn. Defense seems to develop before offense, because a student athlete new to the sport can begin being effective very soon in marking opponents. The skill that can take several years is one Serra and Scripps Ranch players--who have had the advantage of starting playing in the sixth grade over the past two-plus decades--have mastered, and that is controlling the ball through traffic on offense.

Mossmer showed an ability to do that against LCC Saturday. Where La Jolla is going to get stronger, in addition to sports IQ and and awareness of the entire field, will show in attack players being able to take the ball to the hole under duress.