Melissa Rothenberg had several explanations as to why her batting average for the Lawrence High softball team went from .348 as a sophomore to .294 as a junior. But when asked if it came down to getting in a funk that she couldn’t get out of, Rothenberg chuckled.
“Honestly, yes,” she said.
That’s all in the past, however, as Rothenberg has de-funked herself. With a handful of games remaining in her senior season, she was hitting .429 with eight doubles and two triples. That lifted her high school career average to .350.
“I know coming into this year, she felt she had a little bit of an off year by her standards,” said John Patterson, who took over as head coach after two seasons as a Cardinals’ assistant. “We talked about it before the season started, and she was determined to have a better season, and she has. I think she’s going to leave her high school career on a happy note.”
Actually, if Rothenberg is playing softball, she’s happy. Carrying a GPA over 4.0 while taking AP courses, Rothenberg does more than hit and catch softballs.
She is a member of LHS’ Students Helping Honduras, a club that raises money to build schools in Honduras. She also belongs to the National Honor Society, Student Leadership Club (assisting freshman and other community outreach) and the DECA business club.
It’s a heavy workload and makes one wonder how Rothenberg can squeeze in softball. But in essence, she needs it in order to handle everything else.
“That just goes back to the love of a game,” she said. “It’s just a time for me to take my mind off everything else and do something I genuinely do enjoy.”
It’s not hard to see why Rothenberg loves it so much, considering how good she is. Rothenberg has been playing “for as long as I remember,” starting in the Lawrence rec program and moving on to the Newtown (Pa.) Rocks travel team as a freshman in high school.
That same season, she made the Lawrence varsity. Despite being an outfielder all her life, the Cardinals needed a shortstop and put her there. It’s where she remained for three seasons.
Rothenberg recalled the initial experience as “definitely different.”
“I worked a lot with it in the winter with my travel team,” she said. “I knew it was a position I was going to have to step up into. I just wanted to do what was best for the team because that’s where the coach told me she wanted me to play. I wanted to be the best at that position that I could be, so it was a lot of practice outside of school ball on my own with my dad and my travel team.”
She quickly became a fixture and the focus on a new position did not detract from her offensive production. Rothenberg hit .317 with four doubles as a freshman, and hiked her average 31 points as a sophomore.
Then came “the funk,” throughout which she dipped under .300 for the first time last year.
“I think my biggest problems was strikeouts, and strikeouts aren’t productive,” Rothenberg said. “I was really focusing on getting that number down. I have a problem with the rise ball, I always fell for it. I think the main way to fix that was to work with my travel team over the winter. I worked on hitting line drives over pop-ups more, and that helped my swing overall. Also, just picking better pitches really helps me.”
Rothenberg somehow got it in her head that she wanted to hit home runs all the time, and that was a contributing factor to the dip in production.
“I’m just focusing on not crushing the ball every time,” she said. “A single is always great, and you have to focus on that more when you’re behind on the count. A lot of (decreasing the strikeouts) is about focusing on the count that you’re in. You have to smart about it. If you’re ahead on the count, you have to wait for your pitch, and if you’re down on the count, making sure it’s a good pitch.”
Rothenberg’s offensive resurgence coincided with being moved from the middle of the lineup to leading off in order to take advantage of her versatility as a hitter.
“She can bunt, she can run, she has power, she’s smart up there, and she’s really smart on the bases,” Patterson said. “We felt it would be best for us and best for her if we put her in the leadoff spot. So that’s been a little bit of a new situation for her and she’s done a great job with that.
“It’s really helped kind of overall set the tone for our offense, such as it may be. When she does get on it’s a different story because it puts pressure on the defense, which helps our batters further down the lineup.”
‘She’s always out there hustling, always out there trying to make the smart play, trying to get the hit that’s going to lift us up.’
Another difference this season is that Rothenberg has been moved to her natural position. The reason was twofold, as Patterson wanted to shore up his outfield and also begin to nurture his shortstop of the future.
“She did a great job for us at shortstop,” the coach said. “But our outfield has struggled at times in the past, and with Melissa, Robyn Seidman and Bella Andujar out there, our outfield has been fantastic. This year when I see fly balls go up, I’m like, ‘We’ve got that, there’s no doubt in my mind.’ I’m super confident in those three.
“The other thing that made it easier to make the move, was we had another freshman, Haley Lestician, who came in as a third baseman. She’s a fantastic athlete and good player, and we’re looking at the future. We knew we would take some lumps a bit, but we figured we’d start the process of switching over to a new shortstop for our program. So we had Melissa in the outfield, and we got Haley in and settled to go for the next four years at shortstop.”
The revamped defense has not led to a huge victory total as the Cardinals won four of their first 20 games. But the idea was to build for the coming years, and Rothenberg feels it is working out.
“I’m excited for the future Cardinals,” she said. “Our strong junior and sophomore classes will be complemented well by our freshmen, Isabella Andujar and Haley Lestician, who showed great potential this year.”
To Rothenberg’s credit, she played her heart out despite knowing the Cardinals were not built to win during her senior year.
“She’s a captain and she’s one of those types of leaders that likes to lead by example,” Patterson said. “She’s always out there hustling, always out there trying to make the smart play, trying to get the hit that’s going to lift us up.”
A year from now, Rothenberg will be playing outfield for Brandeis University in Boston. In researching schools, she emailed coach Danielle DelPonte and sent along a recruiting video. DelPonte expressed interest, Rothenberg visited and it was an immediate match.
“I just really loved the campus,” she said. “I was able to hang with the girls on the team. They were great people I could see myself being with for the next four years, so I picked that school.”
She plans on tackling a double major in business and economics.
“That’s just something I’ve enjoyed,” she said. “I’m not totally sure where I want to take that yet, but something I’ve been interested in is working with nonprofits. That might be something I see in my future. I got interested in that from working with Students for Honduras.”
Whatever she decides, Rothenberg is just happy that four more years of softball goes along with it.
“It’s just a sport I love,” she said. “Whether we’re winning or losing, being out there no matter what, I enjoy it.”
Lawrence High School softball player Melissa Rothenberg makes a play from center field during a 10-0 loss at Robbinsville May 9, 2017. (Staff photo by Samantha Sciarrotta.),
