Alexander Battles the Bench and Won Last Saturday with a Walk-Off
STILLWATER -- When I was young the best advice my mother ever gave me was not to live with peaks and valley, but try to keep myself somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure she ever followed her own advice and it took me a few years to figure out she was talking about attitude. In sports, it is a secret to success to find that middle ground and not constantly weather highs and lows, because in sports, like in life, they happen.
Just ask Oklahoma State outfielder Chelsea Alexander. The junior from Latta High School near Ada, Okla., she came in as a freshman and started out on the bench, but ended up hitting .300 playing in 58 games. She had two home runs and knocked in 16 runs. A very solid season for a freshman on a talented team.
Her sophomore season, she was expecting to earn a starting line in the line-up, but started out again in the dugout. She again, found a role and played in 52 games with a .268 batting average. Her at bats went down from 130 as a freshman to just 82 last season.
Junior year? Yes, Alexander started out as a back-up outfielder.
"Chelsea, as much as anyone here, rides the highest highs and the lowest lows," Cowgirls head coach Kenny Gajewski said of Alexander. "To understand that and realize that the highest highs and the lowest lows are really hard to handle, it is tough on her."
Those highs are nice. Last Saturday Alexander may have had the highest of her Cowgirls career so far. No. 14 Oklahoma State and No. 10 Oregon were in extra innings. The two teams each scored in the eighth and ninth innings before Alexander came up with Sydney Pennington on base. Alexander gave head coach Kenny Gajewski a look from home plate after the first pitch and he kind of knew it was her moment.
"That is tough (pinch-hitting) and a lot of times I'll pull a player aside and say, 'Try not to suck,'" Gajewski said. "You know try to loosen them up because they get so tight. Now, that was not what Chelsea needed and that wasn't said there."
Yes, we're still thinking about it 🤩💭
— OSU Cowgirl Softball (@cowgirlsb) March 1, 2020
Yesterday marked the first back-to-back extra-inning walk-off wins at home in Cowgirl history.#Pitch2Pitch | #okstate pic.twitter.com/DZ5bnn523B
Alexander took the next pitch and drove it into left-center field and the single scored Pennington with the winning run.
"I needed that big time, for sure," Alexander said. "I had not been producing. "I don't want to say I was tanking, but it was real hard on head (mind). I felt good in the (batter's) box. I was seeing the ball better. Even on Sunday, I didn't hit the ball but I got on base, which is my goal for the team."
"I thought her goal was not to get a hit, but to have a good at bat," Gajewski said of Alexander's at bat in the ninth inning against Oregon. "I think that helped her."
When we spoke to Alexander on Tuesday, she was wearing one of her favorite t-shirts. Gajewski says she is all for Oklahoma State and that includes football too. Her mother bought her the "Teach me how to Gundy" t-shirt. She said she didn't actually do the Gundy after her hit to beat Oregon. She admitted there were to many tears flowing to think about dancing or doing the Gundy.
An excellent student, Alexander is also a volunteer. She likes helping others, a people pleaser so to speak. I've learned over the years that before a people pleaser can really please others, they have to be pleased themselves.
Alexander said she appreciated the immediate rewards of her walk-off heroics against the Ducks as she started the game with Drake on Sunday in right-field, and as Gajewski said, she got on base with two walks.
"She's growing up and maturing," said the head coach. "She has just been struggling because she puts so much pressure on herself. I was happy, the whole team was happy for her."
"I thought it would get easier, but I was naive," Alexander admitted. "Freshman year was a little easier, but I figured out early and I told my (softball) trainer that I don't like to sit."
The bottom line is Oklahoma State has a lot of talented players, too many for just the nine spots in the batting order. Alexander admits that Gajewski and his staff keep bringing in more good players and that is a good thing for Cowgirls softball, but it means there are some good players that are sitting in the dugout.
"Welcome to softball," Gajewski said. "Hitting a round ball with a round bat at 43 feet and with a lot of pressure on you isn't easy."
