Hit Parade Helps Napolitano Reach Top of WCC Charts : Colleges: Loyola Marymount sophomore started season slowly, but a recent hitting tear lifted him to a league-best .416.

Loyola Marymount first baseman Anthony Napolitano says he hasn’t done anything to alter his batting stroke since the start of the season.

If anything, Napolitano said, he was swinging the bat better then.

“I’ve been hitting the ball consistently all season,” he said. “Only before, I wasn’t getting any hits.”

Now the hits keep on coming.

After struggling to keep his batting average above .200 in the first month of the season, Napolitano has been on a tear since the start of West Coast Conference play.

The sophomore has improved his overall batting average to .321 and leads the WCC with a .416 average. He also leads the conference in runs batted in with 37 and doubles with 18.

About the only thing that has stopped Napolitano of late has been a groin injury that kept him out of the lineup for the past week. But he is expected to return when the Lions play host to St. Mary’s for a three-game WCC series that starts Friday at Loyola.

“He’s been playing with it (the injury) that way for about a month and our trainers just felt like it would heal a lot faster if he sat out for a week or so,” first-year Coach Jody Robinson said.

Napolitano, 20, has been a bright spot in a disappointing season for the Lions, who are 12-32.

It is not as if big things weren’t expected from Napolitano when he arrived at the school. He had been an All-Orange County player as a senior at Los Alamitos High.

But Napolitano says a combination of an injury and inexperience led to a slow start.

“I thought my problems started on the field last year,” he said. “We had seven guys drafted (by major league organizations) last year. So I knew I wasn’t going to play much. When you come in as a high school star, you expect to play. But I knew I wasn’t going to play much.”

An injury early in the season didn’t help.

“We played about a month of the season and I broke my right wrist,” he said. “We had played about 20 games already and it was too late to redshirt. I finally got back about a week before the end of the season. But it was hard because it was like starting over again.”

Although Napolitano was used primarily as a pinch-hitter and batted only .200 in 20 at-bats, he said the experience prepared him for this season.

“Just being in that situation helped me for this year because there was always a pressure situation when I was batting,” he said. “At least I knew how it felt to hit at this level.”

Despite his success this season, Napolitano says he is still developing his skills as a college player.

“I’m taking this year as a learning experience,” he said. “I feel like I’m a freshman mentally. I’ve gone through it before but I’m still learning like everyone else on the team.”

With that in mind, Napolitano thinks his best season is still to come.

“I don’t think I’ve reached my potential this year at all,” he said. “I’m not going to be satisfied with this season. You can never be satisfied. I’m the type of person who is never going to be satisfied. Who knows what I can do if I keep working at it?”

Robinson said the first thing Napolitano must do to reach another plateau is improve his strength.

“He’s a good line-drive hitter but when he hits them now they’re usually singles and doubles,” he said. “When he gets a little stronger, they’re going to turn into doubles and home runs.”

Robinson said Napolitano will also benefit from playing in the prestigious Alaska Summer League. He will play for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots.

“That’s how you improve,” Robinson said. “You keep playing all the time and play at a competitive level. Not all of our players can play in a league like that. They don’t recruit guys to play in that league if they don’t feel they can cut it.”

Napolitano said he is looking forward to the experience.

“I think that can help me a lot,” he said. “Last year I played in the Great Lakes League in Ohio. But this is the first time that I’m going to Alaska and I’m looking forward to it.”

He is hoping his success at the college level will lead to a career in professional baseball. But Napolitano has kept the dream in perspective.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to play pro baseball,” he said. “But I enjoy playing college baseball and I’m doing well academically. So I’ll just take it one day at a time and see how it goes.”

Napolitano has done well in the classroom, making the dean’s list in two of his first three semesters. He has a 3.55 cumulative grade-point average, including a 3.8 average last semester.

With a double major of business administration and economics, Napolitano was recently named Loyola’s male student athlete of the year.

“If he keeps working at it, he’s going to have some options because he’s already a great student,” Robinson said. “He’s everything you would want in a recruit. He’s a great student, a talented athlete, and he’s a player that carries himself well both on and off the field.”

While he wants to play in the major leagues, Napolitano realizes that it is a dream that often goes astray.

“That’s why I put in so much time and effort into my schoolwork,” he said. “Even if you do get drafted, you never know what can happen to you. You hear stories all the time of some guy who breaks their leg and their career is over. So that’s why I try to focus on my academics. I want to have something to fall back on.”