Sports
Athlete of the Week — Mary McMahon
"She is smart, hard working, and competitive." – Rachel Sowell, girls' softball coach
The girls' softball program is humming along this spring, and one senior in particular is putting up some spectacular numbers.
Senior pitcher and infielder Mary McMahon is currently listed on maxpreps.com with a .581 batting average, a .591 on base percentage, a .741 slugging percentage, a .947 fielding percentage, and has scored eight runs in 13 games. Those are numbers that scare me even as I write them—I can only imagine the concern they invoke in opposing teams.
McMahon is one of seven seniors on the team this year, and her coaches refer to her as “Doc”—the wise and poignant leader of Disney’s seven dwarves.
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“She’s who the girls look to, to know where to go and what to do out there” Coach Rachel Sowell says about McMahon.
With all honors classes and a 3.16 GPA, McMahon is providing leadership both on and off the field. Her favorite subject in school is math, which combined with her favorite pitch, the fastball, I am sure gives her a calculating edge in every game.
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McMahon is a San Leandro native and attended and. She started playing softball when she was 5 with the San Leandro Bobby Sox.
“When the games are close, everything gets exciting, every little play,” McMahon says of her passion for softball. Though when asked what her inspiration was for excelling on the field she told me simply, “My mom.”
She credits a lot of her softball success to karate, which she did when she was younger. Karate taught her the self-awareness she is able to use on the softball field and helped her develop and understand her own physical prowess, she said.
McMahon will be graduating this June and hopes to attend California State University East Bay to study kinesiology. This year her goal in softball is to keep her batting average above .500. Either way she will definitely go down in San Leandro history as one of the great softball players.
The next girls' softball game is 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 20, at home against Moreau Catholic.
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Athlete: Buster Posey, baseball
Favorite Teacher: Mr. Goulet
