By Don Ketchum

Back in the day, athletes would get a snow cone after a game.

These days, it’s a sports drink. Have to replenish those electrolytes, you know.

So it was that Glendale Deer Valley senior pitcher Lauren Haeger got a plastic bottle filled with a sports drink after a hard-fought 6-5 victory over Chandler Hamilton in Thursday’s (March 17) pool play of the Deer Valley-Sandra Day O’Connor Softball Festival.

Haeger’s grandmother brought the glad tidings.

“She’s the best grandma in the whole world,’’ Haeger said.

And grandma thinks Haeger is the best pitcher in the whole world.

Even when Haeger struggles as she did on Thursday.

The Skyhawks had to rally in the bottom of the seventh with two runs that scored on the same wild pitch by Hamilton. Deer Valley also played a second game, defeating Phoenix Greenway 12-2, but Haeger did not pitch in that one.

Haeger remains one of the state’s best pitchers. She is a member of the U.S. Junior National Team and has signed to play for the University of Florida. Entering the start of the Softball Festival, she was 6-3 with a 0.59 earned-run average. Opponents were hitting .124 against her.

“When the pitches don’t go where you want, you have to step back and take a breath, re-focus and start to bear down,’’ she said. “I have to get my mind right. Sometimes my mind wanders a little and that can be a problem. I start thinking about things too fast.

“As a team, we have to stay positive. If things don’t go our way, we just say, “It’s OK, just let it go. It’s already happened, so there’s nothing you can do about that. You just have to keep throwing hard, keep playing hard.’’

There aren’t too many days when she isn’t pitching. She throws about three times a week for the Arizona Hotshots club team.

The pitch on which she has improved is the drop ball.

“I have thrown it and thrown it and thrown it and it has become a good pitch,’’ she said. “I still throw the rise ball quite a bit, but it has a natural up-spin.’’

She is looking forward to pitching a lot for Deer Valley in the second half of the season and in the Class 5A Division II state tournament.

“I think our chances are really good,’’ Haeger said. “We don’t have many of those games (struggle). We just need to pick each other up. We’ve done a good job of that so far. If everyone does their job, we should be all right.’’