Softball Is a Power Game for Topping

Coaches talk about La Habra’s Jenny Topping the way they do power pitchers, the ones who are so dominant they’re spoken about in almost reverent tones.

But they talk of Topping’s hitting. She’s not another left-handed slapper so prevalent in softball who, if a pitcher makes a mistake, will turn it into a grounder up the middle.

Topping has power, the kind that makes people stop eating their hot dogs to watch.

“I don’t know if you watch old films,” Mater Dei Coach Doug Myers said, “but watch her and then take a look at Babe Ruth. The way she uses her legs--they explode into the ball.”

It’s a big, powerful swing that pays obvious dividends. But for Topping, it comes without the strikeouts.

She is batting .625, has 28 runs batted in and has scored 16 runs. She also has a county-high seven home runs. Three have been on fields where there’s a fence, and four have been where she has simply hit the ball a mile.

“Her home runs aren’t even close,” La Habra Coach Sue Briquelet said. “She’s been rounding third whenever the outfielder’s picking up the ball. The home run against El Toro--I swear it went over 290 feet in the air.”

Topping, a sophomore with a legitimate chance to break the Southern Section record for home runs, both in a career (28) and in a season (14), doesn’t like Myers’ comparison because “he was known for home runs and strikeouts.”

“Home runs don’t matter to me,” she said. “Base hits are important--hitting them in the gaps--and if I get around, I get around.”

Briquelet says, “If it’s questionable, Jenny doesn’t get a hit. Her .625 [batting average] is legitimate.

“You know, she’s only a sophomore, and she has improved a huge amount from her freshman year to her sophomore year,” Briquelet said. “It’s scary to think what the limits are if she makes those same improvements every year. I don’t think you can limit her.”

She is also a talented catcher. In a sport where the bunt is such a valuable weapon, being left-handed doesn’t hurt Topping. In fact, it might help because she’s able to hide her pickoff throws to first base (from her knees).

“Because we run so much, we’re really aware of catchers, and she has a snap throw to first base, coming from the left side. It just explodes,” Myers said. “And she whips it to second base when it looks like she’s just tossing it to the pitcher.”

And when Topping, 15, says she would like to make the Olympic team one day, no one flinches.

“I remember the first time I saw Jenny, the summer after her sixth-grade year,” Briquelet said. “Jenny steps in against a machine and had this huge swing. She got in there, was confident, she was pulling everything and was hitting the ball hard. From then on, I knew this kid was going to be a great one.”

Topping’s philosophy is to hit the ball hard every at-bat. Perhaps no player in the county swings harder.

“She takes a long stride, and the cardinal rule is to take a short step and use a lot of hip rotation,” says her dad, Rick. “That’s where she developed so much power. And she has tremendous upper body strength.”

Topping’s seven homers so far come on the heels of five last season. She is nearly halfway to the section’s career record of 28, set by Jenny Dalton of Glendale (1990-92). The second-best total is 23.

The single-season record is 14, set by Hesperia’s Sheri Ramsay (1990).

“If people will pitch to her, I know she’ll pass all those,” Briquelet said.

But homers are a byproduct, not a goal.

“If I think about [hitting home runs], I won’t do it,” Topping said. “I have to think about hitting the ball hard and hitting a line drive. And if it happens, it happens.”

Woodbridge Coach Alan Dugard, whose team won the Southern Section Division II title last year, remembers Topping well from the second round of the playoffs. He has also seen her in his annual Woodbridge Classic, which continues Saturday at Irvine’s Harvard Park.

“Against us, she almost took our third baseman’s head off,” Dugard said. “She can make a very good pitcher look bad. I’ve seen her against a couple of really good pitchers and made them look like they didn’t know what they were doing. And they didn’t make bad pitches.”

Although personal hitting coaches are gaining popularity, Topping has nothing to do with them. Her coach is her dad, who doesn’t profess any special knowledge.

“She pretty much does it on her own,” Rick Topping said. “I just try to keep her from getting bad habits.

“I have an older daughter [Edie] who went to two or three different batting coaches within two or three years and each had a different approach. Each had a different style. As a parent, you ask, ‘Which style is correct?’ There isn’t a correct style. I became a disbeliever in batting lessons.”

He says hitting a softball is like playing Ping-Pong--the more you do it, the better you get.

“Plus,” Rick Topping said, “the child has a particular knack for it.”