Mater Dei’s Schicker Has Dialed It Up for the Playoffs

SANTA ANA —  Mater Dei left fielder Jodi Schicker has a confession.

Last year, when the Monarchs were playing Marina for the Southern Section Division I softball title, she was a little overwhelmed.

“Since I was a freshman,” she said, “I was just glad to be there in a big game. I’d never been there before. It wasn’t that upsetting to me to lose, although I would have liked to have won.”

This year, second-seeded Mater Dei (29-1) is back, in large part because of Schicker, who has performed better in the playoffs than she did during the regular season. She’s hoping to squeeze in one more big performance against fourth-seeded Camarillo (24-2-1) at 7:30 tonight at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park.

“She’s come on stronger than anybody,” Monarch Coach Doug Myers said.

How strong? She is batting .636 in the playoffs with an .867 on-base average. In four games, she has scored five runs, driven in seven and stolen four bases.

In the preceding 26 games, Schicker batted .418, scored 21 runs and had 19 runs batted in. She also stole eight bases. A right-handed batter who hits seventh, she has three home runs and a .572 slugging average.

“She does everything 100%,” Myers said. “She swings hard, she runs hard. Watch her in warmups--everything she does, she does as hard as she can. Other players say they do that, but she really does it.”

All that effort has paid off.

Last year, after Mater Dei’s first round of cuts, Schicker barely made the team. Then, in a scrimmage against Pacifica, she made a running catch. “Out of this world,” Myers said. “From that point on, she continued to impress me.”

She was part of a three-person platoon in left field, batting .297, but began starting games as they became more important--culminating in a championship game start against Marina, a 3-0 loss to the two-time defending champion.

Schicker, 5 feet 3, packs a surprising wallop and is as quick as anyone.

“With her speed, I was thinking about trying to work with her from the left side, but at that point, we had more slappers and we needed people who could drive the ball,” Myers said. “Fortunately, we never got around to working with her from the left side, because she’s had a huge impact hitting the ball right-handed.”

All that hard work exacts a toll. Schicker might spend as many as 22 hours a week playing softball.

“There are times I wish I could go out with my friends--they don’t have any sports commitments,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I could do that. On the other hand, I think it’s better for me to play softball. Plus, I enjoy it and it will help me out in the long run.”

In the long run, she hopes to get a college scholarship and become a pediatrician or work with children in some capacity.

But if her commitment is a strength, self-criticism is a weakness “because I want to do my best and sometimes it doesn’t work out,” she said. “But I get over it pretty soon. If I don’t, I won’t be in the lineup or on the field. [Myers] wants players who want to be out there and don’t have attitude problems.”

Schicker has always been a terrific defensive outfielder, but her greatest problem was getting an opportunity, Myers said. He rectified that by turning the position over to her, ahead of a great hitter, Kendra Meano (.462 as a designated hitter), and a senior who started since she was a freshman, Katie Chauvin.

“It seems every obstacle Jodi runs into,” Myers said, “she rises above it.”