SB : In junior year, Kohl blossoms into clutch hitter for Orange
Lacey Kohl was down to her last strike. One more and the game was over. She crowded the plate to protect the outside corner.
With a runner on and Syracuse trailing Fresno State by a run in the top of the seventh inning, Kohl fouled off pitch after pitch. Finally, she got a pitch to hit.
In 45-degree weather in Palm Springs, Calif., Kohl hit a home run into the wind over the left center field wall to give Syracuse the lead.
‘I knew at that point, no matter what I was swinging at, it was going to be hit hard,’ Kohl said. ‘I was not going to miss the ball.’
Kohl’s clutch at-bat in that 4-3 win on Feb. 26 is just one of many times the junior catcher has come through for the Orange this season. After hitting for a combined .224 average in her first two seasons, Kohl is leading SU (21-5) in hitting with a .343 batting average this year.
She also tops the team in home runs, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Kohl said she got in better shape over the summer and came to Syracuse determined to have a breakout year. She credits her current success to those extra hours of practice.
Kohl takes extra batting practice whenever she can find time, before or after practice. On days off, she said she often tries to hit buckets of balls off the tee.
That work ethic hasn’t gone unnoticed. SU associate head coach Wally King said Kohl has been the ‘most dedicated kid’ on the team. King said that as a catcher, Kohl is forced to work on hitting outside of practice.
‘It could be easy to kind of let the hitting piece go,’ King said. ‘I’ll walk down through here maybe, and she’ll be down here on her own.’
During practice, she has to catch the pitchers. Recruited as a utility player, Kohl also takes ground balls at third base and puts in time in the outfield. King said she has only worked harder to keep up offensively.
It’s a work ethic King demands out of his hitters. He stresses the importance of never taking a day off.
‘You can’t take a day off as a hitter, and that goes for practice days or for game days,’ King said. ‘You have to do the same thing.’
Her No. 1 battery mate, Syracuse pitching ace Jenna Caira, said she appreciates the extra work Kohl has put in. When the team is scoring runs, Caira’s job is much easier. Kohl’s improvement at the plate has caught Caira’s eye as well.
‘She’s coming up in those clutch situations,’ Caira said. ‘That’s huge for us because that’s the point of the game. We need to score runs.’
Her hot start has given her confidence, something she lacked as an underclassman. So when she went hitless in 11 at-bats at the University of Virginia Spring Break Invitational in Charlottesville, Va., two weeks ago, Kohl stayed confident. One week later, in a doubleheader at Penn, Kohl went 5-for-7 with four RBI to lead the Orange to two wins.
‘To know that I bounced back from that weekend and continued to hit well,’ Kohl said, ‘was just kind of proving to myself that I am as good as everyone thinks I am.’
King was impressed again by Kohl during the Penn series last week. King said she fouled off four or five tough pitches on the outside corner in an at-bat in the second game.
Then, he gave her some advice.
‘I yelled out, ‘Hit the mistake, hit the mistake,” King said. ‘She kept fighting them off and then, whack, she goes three-run home run straight away center, about 260 (feet) straight away.’
The home run put the game out of reach, giving SU an 8-0 lead in the seventh inning and helping the Orange to sweep the doubleheader.
King said Kohl understands her strengths and weaknesses as a hitter now. She goes to the plate looking for a good pitch to hit every at-bat. She has learned how to battle to get those pitches.
‘She has fought off tough pitches,’ King said. ‘She’s gotten a mistake pitch, and she’s hit it and not missed it.’
