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Adams County Christian School’s Ashleigh Williams was selected as softball All-Metro MVP after batting .378 with three homeruns and tallying a 3.10 ERA as a senior. Williams plans to attend Mississippi College in Clinton. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Adams County Christian School’s Ashleigh Williams was selected as softball All-Metro MVP after batting .378 with three homeruns and tallying a 3.10 ERA as a senior. Williams plans to attend Mississippi College in Clinton. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Adams County Christian School’s Ashleigh Williams was selected as softball All-Metro MVP after batting .378 with three homeruns and tallying a 3.10 ERA as a senior. Williams plans to attend Mississippi College in Clinton. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Adams County Christian School’s Ashleigh Williams was selected as softball All-Metro MVP after batting .378 with three homeruns and tallying a 3.10 ERA as a senior. Williams plans to attend Mississippi College in Clinton. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Adams County Christian School’s Ashleigh Williams was selected as softball All-Metro MVP after batting .378 with three homeruns and tallying a 3.10 ERA as a senior. Williams plans to attend Mississippi College in Clinton. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

NATCHEZ — Perhaps too much stress is put on clutch moments in sports.

Adams County Christian School senior softball player Ashleigh Williams’ most memorable moment on a softball field is one she almost missed.

“We were at a tournament and I was at the end of the dugout talking to a teammate about a play that just happened,” Williams said. “I forgot I was supposed to be on deck. So I ran out and strapped up, and then the first pitch I saw was waist high, and I sent it over the fence for a grand slam.”

Williams displayed her power for the Lady Rebels this season with three home runs in addition to her 16 RBIs and a .378 batting average, but that’s not Williams’ only contribution to her squad this season. The four-year starter at first base boasted a 3.10 ERA as one of ACCS’s shutdown pitchers. Williams’ versatility on the field during her four years at ACCS grants her the title of The Natchez Democrat’s All-Metro Player of the Year.

“She’s been a big part of our program throughout the years,” ACCS coach Rick Fife said. “She’s a team leader, and she pitched a lot of innings as well playing some first base for us. She had a great, productive year at the plate.”

Williams said he has been pitching since she was 9 years old. Because she started growing quickly, she always had good velocity behind her pitches, but Williams said she started to gain command of her arsenal at around 12 or 13 years old. She said her youth coach, Rut Horne, showed her the ropes as a junior player.

“He helped me out with my fielding,” Williams said. “When I was little I played shortstop and third, but he would move us around.”

Horne currently coaches the Ferriday Gators, a summer softball team out of Ferriday made up of area high school players, but he said he used to take infield with Williams in Natchez on Sundays when she was younger.

“When Ashleigh started she was a 9 year old,” Horne said. “I thought she was 12 or 13 when we used to take a lot of infield. She could always hit the ball even as a 9-year-old.”

Horne said Williams often played and practiced with older players, which he thinks helped her progress exponentially.

“I worked with her as she grew up but she went out on her own,” Horne said. “She was out there with 16- and 17-year-olds.”

Williams said, in her senior season, she had to adjust her plate approach. Teams scouted her as a pull hitter, so they began to pitch to her mostly on the outside corner of the plate. Williams started hitting the ball to the opposite field and her power began to develop that direction.

“My mentality at the plate was if I had a girl on first I had to hit the ball to right to move her over,” Williams said. “The mentality of being an upper classman is you have to used the experience you’ve gained from having been in the batters box longer.”

Williams said she plans to attend Mississippi College where she will throw discus as a member of the track and field team. It’s a change of pace for the All-Metro softball player, but her coach said she has also made a name for herself in the classroom.

“She’s a great student, and she’s a tremendous person on and off the field,” Fife said. “She’s in numerous school clubs, and she’s an honor roll student.”

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