Mounie helps NRHS start right

After making it into the state semifinals last year, Nansemond River High School’s softball team brought great hopes and expectations to the 2015 season. But the lady Warriors needed to set a good tone in their season-opener.

Junior Jaclyn Mounie helped make it happen. Her standout performance against host Grassfield High School led to her becoming the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

Aiding the Lady Warriors in their 8-6 victory over the Lady Grizzlies on March 17, Mounie went 3-for-4 at the plate with a run batted in and two runs scored. NR coach Gabe Rogers noted Mounie also played outstanding defense on the right side of the field with senior first baseman Emily Carson.

The coach said Mounie’s overall performance was key, “just due to the fact that obviously now that we’re a couple games into the season, you can really see what a good offensive team Grassfield is.”

The Lady Grizzlies managed to score five runs on King’s Fork High School senior ace pitcher Sydney Wash on March 23, and then they put up 13 against host Hickory High School the next day.

Rogers praised Mounie for hitting with authority against Grassfield, but before that, he took a moment to further highlight her abilities in the field, where she has played at both second base and shortstop this season.

“She’s one of the most consistent, well-balanced defensive players, in my opinion, in the entire Tidewater area,” he said.

Of her overall performance in the season-opener, Mounie said, “I felt pretty good about it.”

Since her freshman year, she has been a starter on a Lady Warriors team stacked with talented players, many of whom had been her teammates previously on a Smithfield Galaxy Fastpitch Association travel team.

For the Nansemond River team, she said, “I’m able to contribute my hard work.”

Rogers described Mounie as stoic, tough and hard-nosed — fitting for someone with her upbringing.

“She’s done nothing but grow up in a household of wrestling-mentality men,” Rogers said.

He noted her father was a wrestler, her grandfather was a wrestler and a wrestling coach, and these kind of men have one approach to challenges in life — to work as hard as you can, the best you can, all the time.

She has applied this mentality to softball and field hockey, but as a young girl, she initially had different plans.

“I started off wanting to dance and stuff, but then my sister wanted to play softball, so then I wanted to try it out,” she said.

Mounie, now 16, said she was 7 when she first played softball.

“I’ve known Jac ever since she was little, and she’s always been a special player, she’s always been a talented player,” Rogers said.

After high school, she plans to take those softball talents to Towson University, where she has verbally committed to attend and play for its NCAA Division I team.

“She works hard for everything, and she really has no days off,” said her sister, Hope Mounie. “She’s always putting in work for softball, and she’s become a great leader on and off the field.”