Palmyra's Mollie White made a career of mowing down batters

It’s the ultimate one-on-one struggle in sports. Hitter versus pitcher.

It’s a confrontation that Mollie White dominated routinely.

Last month, White, a recent graduate of Palmyra High School, completed a scholastic softball career for the history books and the record books. White led the 11-9 Cougars to the District 3 Class 5A playoffs, where they endured a 9-4 opening-round setback at the hands of third-seeded South Western.

White likely retired as Lebanon County’s all-time leader in strikeouts. Despite losing her freshman season to COVID-19, White recorded 618 strikeouts in her three-year career at Palmyra, a figure that is believed to be the most ever by a Lebanon County softball pitcher.

“When I’m pitching, I don’t think about a lot of things,” White said. “I mostly think about the next pitch. I always forget what just happened. I don’t think like, ‘Oh, I need to strike this girl out,’ or this or that. I know my team has me.”

For numbers people, White’s pitching stats are staggering. But they tell a tale of execution, focus and preparation.

White piled up those 618 strikeouts in 357 career innings, a mind-boggling 1.73 strikeouts per inning pitched. For her career, White posted a 10.3-strikeouts-per-walk ratio and registered a 1.94 era.

This season, for a second straight year, White, who fanned 230 hitters in 111 innings pitched, was named the Mid-Penn Conference’s Keystone Division player of the year.

“I would think that total would be hard to beat,” said Palmyra head coach Kirsten Hertzog of White’s local record. “Molly is very crafty in the circle. She has been lights out. She has literally been mowing batters down. She can move the ball around and she does a great job of mixing speeds. Her ability to mix things has made her very hard to hit. She rose, and got better each and every year.”

What makes White’s feat even more amazing is the fact that she has accomplished it without necessarily setting out to do so. Armed with four different pitches, White’s out-pitch is her rise ball.

“I don’t try to strike them out,” White said. “I just mostly try to produce outs. If I strike them out, cool. But with me being a rise-ball pitcher that can result in a pop-up, and that’s pretty easy to field. A change-up makes a grounder that’s pretty easy for the girls to field.”

In the circle, White is also very cerebral, collected and calculating. She can spot hitters’ weakness quickly, and she understands the importance of the count, especially of the first-pitch strike.

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“First-pitch strike is so important,” White said. “Literally, it sets up how coach is going to call that next pitch and what that next pitch is going to be. You can throw a few bad pitches, or you can go for another strike. When you get behind in the count things get a little fat and right down the middle of the plate. Once you start getting that first-pitch strike you can really work with the batters.”

White didn’t just wake up one day a strikeout artist. She has been fine-tuning and honing her craft since she began pitching at the age of 8.

Now, not only has all that hard work produced a bunch of strikeouts, it’s also earned her a scholarship to play college softball at West Virginia Wesleyan.

“It was a lot of parent support and coaches’ support that brought me up,” White said. “(West Virginia Wesleyan) Coach has sent me workouts and I think it’s just sticking to what the college coaches want me to do and putting forth the effort. It’s not going to be easy playing at the next level. I think it’s just going to be a lot of hard work. My No. 1 priority is putting in hard work during the off-season, so I go to college prepared.”

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“Molly is extremely humble,” Hertzog said. “Just talking to her you wouldn’t believe the accolades she’s earned through her career. Molly works hard in everything she does. She’s always there to show up for people.”

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Palmyra pitcher Mollie White piled up career strikeouts