Mark WiedmerBeneath a perfect blue sky Monday afternoon, beside a perfectly manicured Frost Stadium softball field, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior first baseman Jesslyn Stockard imagined a perfect ending for her final season with the Mocs.
"Not many people get to play (their conference tournament) at home," Stockard said of the Southern Conference tournament that gets under way Wednesday morning at Frost.
"We'll have our fans here to see it. We have traditionally been the team to beat. We have taken a few games from the top teams. I can't think of a better way to go out."
In early February they could have envisioned many better scenarios than to enter this tournament with a 14-36 overall record and a 4-14 league mark, which left UTC all alone in seventh and last place in the final SoCon regular-season standings.
To make that more painful for the Ringgold, Ga., native, Stockard was part of a recruiting class that won SoCon tourney titles and NCAA tourney bids in both her freshman and sophomore seasons.
But as UTC coach Frank Reed noted of this, his 16th year in charge: "We knew we'd struggle from the pitching side. Everybody expects you to win, but realistically you know what you've got to work with."
Because Stockard has been injured at some point during each of her four seasons with the Mocs, Reed often has been unsure if he'd be able to work her into the lineup. But she's been so healthy the past two or three weeks that SoCon regular-season co-champ Furman might want to avoid pitching to her when the two meet around 12:30 Wednesday afternoon.
Over the Mocs' past four games - three of them at Furman - Stockard has clubbed three home runs, which moved her team-high total to seven for the season. Of equal import, she enters the SoCon tourney having set a league fielding percentage of 1.000 on 291 chances in 42 games. No one previously has successfully fielded that many chances without an error.
"And they said she'd never throw again," Reed said of Stockard, who underwent acupuncture treatments when all else failed. "Without those treatments, she wouldn't be playing."
It's the approach she has to playing and practicing that Reed will most miss, however.
"Jesslyn's always been about doing all the right things," he said. "She comes every day with a great attitude."
But as good as Stockard has been at delivering senior leadership, freshman Aly Walker has been equally strong at displaying maturity at the plate far beyond her years.
Playing in all 50 of the Mocs' games, Walker batted a team-best .329, which also topped all SoCon freshmen, and drove in 21 runs.
"I've learned you can run on five hours of sleep quite nicely," Walker said of the team's 5:45 a.m. workouts three days a week. "Naps become the most important part of the day."
Her favorite part of any day has become hanging out with her teammates, especially seniors Stockard and former Girls Preparatory School and Chattanooga State player Katy Richardson, who batted .318 during the regular season.
"Sometimes freshmen are scared," Walker said. "They see a mean senior class. But the best part of this year has been the closeness of our team. They become your sisters. We all get along so well. There's no drama. Winning for our seniors this week is definitely in the back of our minds."
This is the attitude Reed hoped he'd get when he started recruiting Walker while she was a member of the Illinois Force travel squad.
"Back then I didn't realize she was a Tennessee kid," Reed said of the Medina, Tenn., native. "Great kid, great family. They don't come any better than her."
A favorite Reed story about Walker: Earlier this season she was late for a meeting. Reed told her to meet him at his office. When he showed up, she was already there at his door and she was crying.
"Our staffers thought I'd beaten her or something, and I hadn't even talked to her yet," Reed said. "But she was that upset that she'd disappointed me. You don't see that very often."
You don't see a No. 7 seed win the SoCon tournament very often, either. But that doesn't mean the Mocs don't think such a scenario is possible.
"Why not us?" Walker asked. "Everybody loves an underdog."
Especially when that underdog is also the hometown fan favorite.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com