Injury hasn’t slowed two-sport star
Tri-State Sports & News Service
Claire Oberdorf is impossible to miss on the softball field. She’s the one with the dirt-stained uniform and bumps and bruises.
It is standard operating procedure to see the Greensburg Salem grad sliding headfirst into bases and sacrificing her body as the catcher for the Marist College Red Foxes.
A redshirt sophomore who also plays basketball at the Division I school, Oberdorf moves at one speed: Turbo.
“Pedal to the metal all the time,” Oberdorf said. “It’s the only way I know.”
That pedal was pushed to the floor during a four-game stretch against Fairfield and Quinnipiac in mid-April. Oberdorf hit .500, drove in 8 runs, scored 7 and hit 2 homers. In the second game of a doubleheader against Quinnipiac, her three-run homer was the difference in a 9-6 victory. She finished 2 for 2 with 4 RBIs, 2 runs, a walk and she was hit by a pitch.
“She can do it all,” coach Joe Ausanio said.
Oberdorf’s batting average of .269 is third on the team. She ranks first in steals (14) and number of times hit by a pitch (14). She is second in on-base percentage (.391) and home runs (4).
On defense, Oberdorf has few equals behind the plate. Formerly a second baseman, she has thrown out 10 of 18 potential base stealers. Ausanio put those numbers into perspective.
“To have a success rate of better than 50 percent is unheard of in college softball, where baserunners successfully steal bases 80 to 90 percent of the time,” said Ausanio, whose program has authored seven consecutive winning seasons and has been to the NCAA Regionals in 2013 and 2016. “Her arm is like a bazooka. If I were a Major League Baseball scout, her arm strength would be rated around 70 on a scale up to 80. That is really impressive. If you’ve ever seen Yadier Molina catch in the majors, she’s similar to him. Claire is an incredible talent.”
And get this: Oberdorf is playing on two surgically repaired knees. She had the right one done as a junior at Greensburg Salem and the left one done a year ago after injuring it during the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference basketball tournament.
The most recent surgery forced her to not only miss the 2017 softball season, but the 2017-18 basketball season, as well.
During the rehabilitation process, Oberdorf stunned Ausanio, who has pretty much seen it all as a former Major League Baseball player (including a stint with the Pirates) and as 10-year coaching veteran at Marist. He explained. “She had her surgery in the first week of April (2017), and by the time October came around, she said to me, ‘I’m cleared,’” Ausiano said of Oberdorf, who, after consultation with the medical and athletic staff, decided to take a year away from sports. “I said, ‘What?’ Usually it takes nine to 10 months. But the kid is such an incredible athlete. She worked her way through it. I couldn’t believe it. But we decided to nurse her along a little more slowly. It was like protecting an investment.”
Oberdorf will have two years of eligibility remaining in both softball and basketball after this season. In her most recent basketball season (2016-17), she started all 32 games as a sophomore, averaging 10.5 points and 5.2 rebounds. As a freshman on the softball team, she led the Red Foxes in average (.376) and slugging percentage (.638), while hitting 7 homers with 39 RBIs and 37 runs. She was a consensus All-Freshman pick by multiple organizations.
The good news for the Red Foxes (21-27) is that Oberdorf appears to be finding her old form at the right time of year. Marist, which entered the week having won two in a row, has six games remaining before the start of the conference tournament next week.
“I’ve felt good the entire season,” said Oberdorf, who hit her first career grand slam earlier this year. “Softball, and hitting in general, can be difficult. It’s about learning to pick your pitches. It takes some time. I’ve worked through that. But physically, I’m feeling strong. The key is helping my team win as many games as we possibly can.”
Oberdorf’s competitive genes can be traced to parents Doug and Jeannie. Both graduates of Allegheny College, Dad played football at the school and Mom basketball. Older sister Jayne, an all-conference pitcher at Marist from 2014-17, teamed with Claire at the high school and collegiate levels.
“We all have a desire to work hard and to win,” said Claire Oberdorf, a secondary education major with a focus on math.
“The key for me in coming back from the injury was to move past it. It’s a long road to recovery and it can be challenging, but in the end, I think it makes you stronger. I haven’t changed anything about the way I play. I can’t. It’s not who I am as a player, as a person.”