IWA’s Webb has stellar junior season
Published 10:22 pm Tuesday, May 26, 2015
The title of Metro Conference Player of the Year for softball went to Isle of Wight Academy’s star pitcher, Trish Webb of Suffolk, for the second year in a row.
Suffolk’s Trish Webb continued her starring role for Isle of Wight Academy’s softball team this year, again earning the Metro Conference Player of the Year accolade. She also led the Lady Chargers to the VISAA Division II state title game. (Submitted by Cheryl Webb)
Lady Chargers coach Chris Hooper said his junior starter in the circle was “well-deserving. She’s an excellent pitcher for us.”
“She has put a lot of work into her pitching and into her game,” he said. “Trish has been the most dominant pitcher in our conference the last two years.”
Webb said repeating as the Player of the Year “means a lot, definitely, especially knowing that all of my hard work has paid off. It’s just an honor to get it again, and I’m very glad that I did.”
Later during her 2015 campaign, she led the Lady Chargers to the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division II state championship game against Greenbrier Christian Academy. Along with many of her teammates, it was her first time playing in the big game.
She turned in a strong performance on the mound, holding the talented Lady Gators team to only two hits and an unearned run. But Isle of Wight could not break through offensively, resulting in its 1-0 loss.
“It was an extremely close game,” Webb said. “We were going in confident, but we knew that it was going to be a challenge.”
She said the Lady Chargers loaded the bases against GCA at one point, but “we just couldn’t get that final run.”
In terms of how she managed to contain the Lady Gators’ offense, she said, “I mixed up my pitches a lot and tried to keep them off balance and made sure that they didn’t get the timing down on me.”
She also deflected the praise, noting that her team’s defense “helped a lot that game. They had a lot of good plays.”
Aside from her team’s undefeated run in the Metro Conference, Webb’s in-conference statistics help represent why she deserved to be Player of the Year.
She pitched in eight of IWA’s 10 conference games, throwing 45 strikeouts, giving up only 11 hits and possessing an earned run average of 0.488.
She was potent from the plate, as well, carrying a batting average of .533.
Citing Webb’s overall ERA further illustrates how impressive she has been as it does not move up much, sitting at 1.65. She threw 97 innings and had 134 strikeouts.
Webb was also named to the all-state first team for the second time in her career.
She committed last year to play softball at the NCAA Division I level for the University of South Carolina Upstate after she concludes her high school career next season.
