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6.0 years ago @ 7:54AM

Large School Softball Player of the Year - Tami Wong - The Telegraph - 7/27/2017

PREP YEAR IN REVIEW: Large-Schools Softball Player of the Year Tami Wong of Alton

 

Super soph season for Alton’s Wong

By Greg Shashack - gshashack@thetelegraph.com

 


Alton’s Tami Wong hit. 508 as a sophomore to set a school record and earned recognition as 2017 Telegraph Large-Schools Softball Player of the Year.

 

Billy Hurst / For The Telegraph

Alton’s Tami Wong watches her hit during a game against Edwardsville on May 18 in Godfrey. Wong was a first team All-SWC performer in center field for the Redbirds.

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Billy Hurst / For The Telegraph

GODFREY – Baseball players have a walk-up song, with the music going silent just before the first pitch.

For Alton softball’s Tami Wong, it’s a snappy little ditty, written, produced and performed with gusto by teammates in the Redbirds dugout.

“Tami … Tami Wong … Tami, Tami, Tami, Tami Wong”

The ‘can’t get it out of your head’ chant extends beyond the walk-up and reverberates throughout the sophomore’s at-bats.

“The girls have their own little thing for everybody,” Alton coach Dan Carter said. “To me, that shows the support the team has for Tami because of the way she supports them. It’s pretty catchy and I think it helps rally her and I think it helps rally the whole team sometimes.”

It rallied Wong to a record-setting season for the Redbirds and recognition as the 2017 Telegraph Large-Schools Softball Player of the Year. The Alton center fielder batted .509 to lead the Southwestern Conference and break Katie Wilson’s school record set at .492 in 2005.

“When you put it in perspective and you think about the history of Alton High – we’ve had some pretty good hitters – to be the first one to hit .500 is a tremendous honor,” Carter said. “To hit .500 as a sophomore, to work that hard and be that dedicated, it shows you what kind of kid she is.”

Wong and teammate Savannah Fisher were both named Class 4A all-state by the Illinois Coaches Association. In addition to winning the SWC’s batting title, Wong led the league in doubles (17), runs (45) and on-base percentage (.576) out of the No. 2 slot in the Redbirds lineup.

Those numbers came from an underage sophomore – Wong does not turn 16 until September – who hardly looked the part of future all-stater as a 6-year-old in the Godfrey Parks and Rec softball league.

“I honestly think that I was really not that good,” Wong recalls. “I started out catching and I remember every time I threw, it was like rainbows. Really high rainbows.”

When she shifted to the Collinsville Extreme softball club for her 12-under season, Wong’s game came of age. “We started traveling and I started getting the training I needed,” she said. “And here I am.”

Softball beat out a deep roster of sports for Wong’s attention growing up.

“I played basketball, I swam, I played tennis, soccer,” Wong said. “Then as I got older, softball started consuming more time and I realized I was better at it than every other sport, so I stuck with softball.”

Wong was an immediate starter for the Redbirds, winning the job at second base as a freshman. She hit .377 with 27 RBIs and 43 runs scored to earn second team All-SWC honors.

But Wong’s leap to clear .500 as a soph goes unexplained. “I really don’t know what happened,” she said. “I don’t feel like I really started performing until the middle of this season.”

Carter concedes a relatively slow start for Wong. “She had to make adjustments as the season went on,” Carter said. “She’s got great hand-eye coordination. She fights off bad pitches and waits till she gets one she can do something with. Great discipline and great ability.”

A three-walk night in a season-ending loss at Springfield SHG in the regional semifinals denied Wong a shot at reaching Wilson’s school-record of 60 hits in season. She finished with 58 for the Redbirds, who went 22-12 and 7-7 in the SWC.

The transition from infield to outfield came from team need and a shift back to the infield could come as a junior.

“I really like the outfield,” Wong said before adding, “Wherever coach wants me, then he’ll put me there. We’ve talked about going back to the infield, but we’ll just see.”

Any position change, Carter said, has come without complaint.

“She’ll never question what we’re doing,” Carter said. “She’s going to be one of those great leaders. … The younger girls look up to her. She doesn’t get loud. She’s shows how things are to be done and she leads by example.”


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