Hitting Her Mark
The demons of a sophomore jinx were breathing down the neck of Jessica Mendoza, and she was fast approaching meltdown.
Ten games into her second season at Stanford, Mendoza felt she wasn’t living up to the extraordinary standards she set as a freshman.
Batting .294 with three runs batted in after 10 games is not exactly Mendoza’s idea of contributing to a 9-1 team. Not after rewriting the Cardinal record book a season earlier.
“I felt like I had all this pressure to prove myself,” said Mendoza, a Camarillo High graduate.
Yet, no one around Mendoza seemed particularly alarmed about her perceived slump. That only made her feel worse.
When parents Gil and Karen tried to comfort their tearful, distraught daughter at a San Diego State tournament in mid-February, Mendoza snapped at them. “You don’t understand,” she said.
That’s when she realized her molehill had become Mt. Everest.
“If I’m snapping at my parents . . . if I’m that miserable to the people I care about and love most, I need to sit back and take a look at what I’m doing,” Mendoza said.
The perusal didn’t take long. Call it next-day delivery.
Less than 24 hours later, after a leisurely talk with Coach John Rittman, Mendoza went five for six with three home runs and five RBIs in victories over Long Beach State and San Diego State.
Softball was fun again. The demons were vanquished.
“I was so relaxed after that,” Mendoza said.
The sophomore left-handed hitter decided to concentrate on small details so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the big picture. One pitch, one at-bat, one inning.
The center fielder has been on a tear since.
Mendoza leads the Pacific 10 Conference with a .464 batting average, just a tad behind national leader Keneshia McKee (.467) of Alabama State, entering Stanford’s 2 p.m. game today at UCLA.
No one could have expected Mendoza to surpass the numbers she put up in a storybook freshman season.
She set single-season Stanford records with a .415 batting average, nine home runs, 81 hits, 13 doubles, 38 runs and 57 RBIs.
For a player who thought she wouldn’t start as a freshman, imagine Mendoza’s reaction to being selected an All-American, Stanford’s first.
“The whole year was surprise after surprise,” said Mendoza, The Times’ Ventura County player of the year as a senior in 1998, when she batted .477.
This season, Mendoza is breaking her own records for No. 12 Stanford.
In addition to batting 49 points better than last year, she has 15 doubles and 49 runs scored. And there’s more than a dozen games remaining.
“Nothing ever surprises me about her accomplishments,” Rittman said. “There’s a reason she is very, very good: she’s been blessed with great talent and she works very hard at it.”
Mendoza is not one to rest on her laurels. She adopted a “never-be-satisfied” philosophy from her father, Gil, the softball coach at Moorpark College.
“You can never learn enough . . . you can never hit enough,” said Mendoza, who spends several hours each week watching game film and taking extra cuts and fly balls before and after practice.
Considering the amount of time Mendoza commits to softball, it’s a wonder she has a life outside it. But she does, and it’s altogether different.
Josh Magee, her boyfriend of 18 months, is a straight-A international relations major with a love of music. He had little interest in athletics until meeting Mendoza in a freshman dormitory.
“He’s introduced me to a lot of things that I’ve never been exposed to,” said Mendoza, who made the dean’s honor role last quarter. “He’s been a big influence on me.”
Her relationship with Magee, a New York native, has exposed her to some elite company. Chelsea Clinton lives next door to Magee and has given Mendoza a shoulder rub on occasion.
Mendoza’s goal is to get Chelsea out to a softball game, if not this year then sometime in the next two seasons.
“I figure I only have a few years left to play the sport that I’ve loved my whole life,” Mendoza said.
She’s making the most of it.