Pictured: Ontoinette and Leea Hanks during the eventful trip to Notre Dame last weekend. It’s been a week since 2016 softball players could start signing their letter of intent… congrats to all those that realized a dream and made it official by signing to play at the college level!
We start today’s column on a sad note—in case you missed it, one of the long-time stalwart coaches in the club game, Norm Perez, passed away last week after a long illness.
Norm had three decades of success in softball going back to the powerhouse Gordon’s Panthers where he worked with legends in the sport ranging from Lisa Fernandez to Kelly Inouye-Perez to Caitlin Lowe.
He had been with the Firecrackers organization for a long time and Tony Rico, the head of the club program said, “Norm had been in declining health, but the end took us all by surprise. There was not a more loved man than Norm Perez.”
The father of one current Firecracker who is headed to a Pac-12 school added: “Norm was a great man who has left the game—and the people who he came in contact with—better than it/they were when he found them.”
We will have a tribute article on Norm in the near future. Services are being held tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 19) in La Habra, California; you can get the details at a GoFundMe page set up by the Firecrackers called Norm Perez’s Celebration of Life.
Finally, one nice touch happened last month when the USSSA Pride of the NPF came into Southern California and played a game against Cal State Fullerton on their home field.
Before the game, Norm was invited to throw out the first pitch which you can see in the YouTube clip here. I was at the game as were many Firecracker players from all over California and it was fitting tribute—and, sadly, a farewell—to such an influential figure in the sport.
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We knew a year ago that Leea Hanks, a triple-threat slapper and outfielder from Clermont, Fla., would be one of the top players in the 2019 class when we did a Rising Star profile on her. At that point she had her first offer and many more would come over the last year until she finalized her college choice last Sunday when she committed to…
… Notre Dame.
It was Leea’s second visit to South Bend and it did the trick as she committed on a visit to the Irish campus with her parents, William and Ontoinette, there with her. The centerfielder joined the Jersey Intensity-O’Donnell 14U National team in January and her father tells us how playing on a national stage this summer put her in a position to commit:
“We did a ton of traveling throughout the summer and had the opportunity to play in some high profile tournaments and showcases.
Leea (second from left) poses with the Irish coaching staff.Notre Dame's associate coach Kris Ganeff was the first to notice Leea in June 2015 at the D9 Sun Classic showcase in Orlando. During that showcase, Coach Kevin O'Donnell had mentioned to us that Notre Dame was very interested in Leea. They said they were intrigued by her speed, base running, and slap hitting.
Throughout the summer we began to notice a steady presence of Notre Dame coaches at our games. Leea had a great summer and had begun to receive a lot of attention from Pac012, ACC, and SEC teams, but none were more persistent than Notre Dame, and that meant a lot to us as a family.
Notre Dame also followed Leea closely at PGF Nationals where she had a strong showing against some of the best talent in the country, and her team finished 13th out of 68 teams.
Immediately following PGF, Notre Dame extended an invitation to take an unofficial visit. We visited on the weekend of Sept 5th. We were absolutely blown away by the beauty of the campus, but what impressed us more were the people of Notre Dame. We felt such an overwhelming sense of community, pride, and tradition there.
Leea had an opportunity to stay in the dorms, attend class with a player, and go to the first home football game of the year versus the Texas Longhorns.
She was offered that weekend, but didn't commit because we had other visits lined up and she wanted to take the time to see other schools. After visiting a few more school, it became more and more apparent to us that Notre Dame was a special place. We felt that they offered the best of both worlds.
From a softball standpoint, Coach Gumpf and her staff have taken their team to 14 straight NCAA appearances. From an academic standpoint, it was a no-brainer. From a recruiting standpoint, Coach Gumpf has done an awesome job bringing in the likes of Alexis Holloway, the top-ranked 2017 pitcher, Peyton Tidd, a Top 10 2018 pitcher, and Alex McManus, a Top 10 caliber 2019 pitcher.
The future is extremely bright in South Bend and when we considered all of that, Leea was fully convinced that Notre Dame was the place for her.
We returned to South Bend this past weekend and made it official in Coach Gumpf's office. When Leea announced that she wanted to be Irish, the place erupted. Other Notre Dame commits and a few current players all rushed into the office to celebrate with us.
We even got Coach Kevin O'Donnell in on the celebration by calling him and putting him on speaker. It was an awesome experience that we'll never, ever forget!”
*** The last major showcase of the year (2015, that is) takes place this weekend in Southern California as the Surf City Early Thanksgiving Showcase takes place November 20-22 featuring top 18, 16 and 14U teams from across the nation.
A lot of elite committed and non-committed players will be there and many we’re looking forward to watching.
Shannon Mortimer is back healthy and ready to shine at Surf City this weekend. Ironically, last December—the day after we did a Rising Star profile on Leea (see above), we did a Rising Stars feature on pitcher Shannon Mortimer , a 5-foot-10 2018 standout who’s a power thrower from Grafton, Massachusetts.
She plays for the Polar Crush, who’ll be in the 18U division at Surf City and we’re very interested to watch Shannon as her recruiting stock was skyrocketing until an injury shut down her summer.
The sophomore came back with a vengeance this fall and, guesting for the EC Bullets at the Diamond 9 tournament in Orlando three weeks ago, said, “I was throwing well and it felt awesome to be back at full strength.”
Against a strong Beverly Bandits team she pitched two no-hit innings and the recruiting interest is getting heavy again.
Says Shannon, “I am really looking forward to Surf City , because I didn't get much exposure when I got hurt. And it took me so long to get healthy again. But I never gave up on my dream, the only thing I asked my dad is if I could keep training the rest of my body until my arm got better.”
“I never stopped working, and thanks to that, I have the opportunity to pitch against great teams at Surf City. We have a young team now, and they are still trying to find their way. But I'm just happy to be in the circle again, I am just happy to be pitching again. I love pitching and I love this game. Being in California? That's pretty cool too!”
Hard not to root for someone like this…
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Finally, always love it when coaches, both college and club, let us in on a sleeper or underrated player.
One respected coach dropped FloSoftball a note on our 2017’s and said, “I think you might have been missing this one for awhile!”
Judging from her accomplishments, he’s probably right.
The player is Carter Spexarth, a junior pitcher/1B who attends Oak Ridge High in Spring, Texas and plays for the Texas Peppers Gold club team.
Carter is one of the top power-hitters in Texas. Her strength is her bat—she has led her club teams in home runs and RBI four of the last five years and at the 2014 PGF Nationals she batted .725 and this year (2015) she pitched a no-hitter so she’s dangerous at the plate AND in the circle.
For her high school this spring she hit .425 and came up big in one of the biggest series of the year as she had seven RBI in two games against No. 3 The Woodlands to take both games for the first time in 10 years.
A two-time athlete of the week, one scout says of her: “Carter is extremely talented when she is not pitching. She can shut down the short game at first or track down balls in the outfield. She is one of the kids that you can’t afford to take off the field.”
Carter has been on the national stage for several years as she was the winning pitcher for the ASA 12U Texas State Championship game and leading her team at the plate. She led the team with a .545 batting average with three home runs and almost half the team’s RBI. In the circle she went 4-1 calling pitches with her catcher.
Some schools she was recruited by were Texas A&M as a power hitter, FSU as a pitcher, Arkansas as a power hitter and outfielder and ULL as a power hitter and corners before she choose MSU.
