Panther sophomore ace Stephanie Maday was the recipient of the Top Cat this week for her recent domination on the hill. For the season, Maday has posted a 7-6 overall record with a 2.34 ERA in 77.2 innings of work.

This past week, en route to being named the OVC Player of the Week, Maday went 3-1 on the mound while striking out 22 batters—an average of one strikeout per inning. The highlight of her performances came against conference foe Morehead State, when she earned her ninth career shutout in a 5-0 Panther victory.

The most impressive thing about Maday might be her consistency. She always performs at a high level, which leads to extremely high expectations every time she steps foot on the mound. Maday doesn’t look at it like this, though, and instead chooses the Zen approach of taking everything one step at a time.

“It’s when you start listening to what other people are saying and putting extra pressure on yourself that things don’t go as expected,” Maday said. “That’s something Coach Schuette and I have talked about a lot already this season. We talked about going out there and taking it one game, one inning, one batter at a time and not putting pressure on myself to exceed the accomplishments I had last year.”

This approach, along with Maday’s great work ethic, has been the blueprint to success for the sophomore ace. Over the offseason, Maday worked hard to make herself a better player, which sounds easy, but is pretty hard when you’re already good.

“During the offseason I worked on making my pitches better,” Maday said. “I worked on speed and spinning my pitches to get more movement. I worked on being able to hit my spots on every pitch. We also worked on what approach to take on a batter, such as what pitches we want to throw at certain points throughout the at bat.”

For the season, Maday has tallied 73 strikeouts in 77.2 innings pitched, for almost one strikeout per inning. She really enjoys painting the corners, and will go with whatever pitch is working best at the moment for her top results.

“I love the ball low and on the corners, so I usually stick with my curve ball or my drop ball,” Maday said. “Recently, my drop has been my strikeout pitch.”

Even though the team is only 11-11 to start the season, Maday feels confident that they will finish well. The team has built great chemistry over the past couple weeks and Maday cites that as a reason for her high expectations.

“People may look at our record right now and think ‘What’s going on? Why are you guys only at .500?’” Maday said.  “I think now we are starting to play together as a team. We are making big plays and different people are stepping up at different parts of the game. We are gaining confidence in each other and what our team can do.”

Maday is a team player first and foremost, and loves to get her teammates involved when she’s on the mound. 

“I love getting grounders so my defense can make the plays,” she said. “And what’s not to love about a big strikeout? I love pitching for this team, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Maday has been pitching since the age of eight, and doesn’t look to stop anytime soon. With a large portion of the season left, and only being a sophomore, Eastern fans can expect to hear a lot more from Stephanie Maday, the Top Cat of the week.

Erik Jensen can

be reached at 581-7942 

or at [email protected].