PUP softball Player of the Year: Seneca Valley’s Lexie Hames

Plenty of incredible softball players have come and gone through Western Pennsylvania over the years, but there’s never been anybody quite like Lexie Hames.

After pitching Seneca Valley to a WPIAL Class 6A title and a trip to the state championship game as a freshman — while also tying for the WPIAL lead with 14 home runs — Hames entered a new stratosphere as a sophomore. No matter how you slice it, the Raiders superstar was in a league of her own in 2023 — be it numbers, team success, two-way production or the outright fear she instilled in her opponents, Hames had it all.

Her debut season put her on track for more than 50 home runs by the time she graduates, but Hames will have a hard time hitting that number while receiving the Barry Bonds treatment from opposing coaches. In 19 games this season, Hames had only 28 official at-bats while drawing 35 walks in 65 plate appearances — most of them intentional. She still hit five home runs and batted .393 with a .738 on-base percentage, .964 slugging percentage and 1.702 OPS, but Hames certainly would have loved more opportunities to swing the bat.

Although her prodigious power at the plate is second to none, she might be even more intimidating in the circle. A towering presence with piercing blue eyes, unshakable confidence, overwhelming velocity and an undeniable aura, she beats most batters before they even step into the box against her. Her fastball tops out at 68 mph, and Hames also has impeccable control of every pitch she throws, painting the corners at will with her off-speed arsenal when she’s not busy blowing foes away with the high heat.

Arguably the best outing of Hames’ young career came in a 1-0 win against Norwin’s high-powered offense on April 26, when she struck out 19 and allowed only one hit in a complete-game shutout. And if that wasn’t her finest performance of the season, her 18-strikeout masterpiece in a 3-0 win against eventual WPIAL Class 6A champion Hempfield in the final game of the regular season surely takes the cake. Hames hit a three-run homer in the sixth inning of that one, clinching the section title and No. 1 seed for the WPIAL playoffs in the process.

Of course, the Raiders would go on to lose to Hempfield, 2-1, in the WPIAL title game, ending their season in bitterly premature fashion — but you can’t pin the loss on Hames. She allowed only one earned run on three hits over eight innings of work, and she was intentionally walked in all four trips to the plate.

Despite finishing 17-2 overall, Seneca missed out on the state playoffs, with only the WPIAL champion qualifying for this year’s PIAA tournament in Class 6A. It’s an unusually cruel punishment for a team with only two one-run losses all year long — both against Hempfield, the WPIAL champion and PIAA runner-up.

Still, it was a season to be proud of for the Raiders, who have now made back-to-back WPIAL championship appearances with Hames leading the way. For the year, Hames finished 17-2 with an 0.46 ERA, 0.49 WHIP and a WPIAL-leading 269 strikeouts to only 32 walks in 122 innings pitched. And with two more years of high school left, the sky is the limit for Hames and Seneca in 2024 and beyond.

For all she accomplished this spring, Hames is the 2023 Pittsburgh Union Progress softball Player of the Year, as voted on by the PUP sports staff. All players in the WPIAL and City League were considered for the inaugural award.

The PUP caught up with Hames just before she left to begin her first travel ball tournament of the summer, allowing her to reflect on the spectacular start to her high school career while also looking ahead to the future.

Q: What have you been up to since the end of the season?

A: Just traveling for softball. I leave at 3 a.m. [Wednesday] to go to Kansas City. Just packing.

Q: What does your travel schedule look like this summer?

A: This is the first [tournament] coming up. We’ll be in Kansas City and then Oklahoma and Colorado. All over the place.

Q: How excited are you to finally be able to swing the bat without getting walked every time you step to the plate?

A: I’m super excited. Even in the fall, just traveling with my team and going to practices in Florida and all that kind of stuff — it’s been so much fun. My team is super supportive and super energetic and I just love being with them. I’m super excited to head to some different places and get out of PA a little bit and just ball out a little bit.

Q: Were you following along closely with the Women’s College World Series?

A: I was. I was down at Duke for the Super Regionals against Stanford.

Q: Are you a fan of the Oklahoma dynasty or would you prefer to see somebody else win for once?

A: I mean, I’ve been a fan of Oklahoma since I was about 10. It’s always nice to see them win. You always hope a little bit that the underdog comes up and wins a game, but Oklahoma winning, that’s the team I’m always rooting for. Stanford though, they came out this year. Watching [NiJaree] Canaday pitch at Duke was just crazy to see that level. Hopefully, that’s the goal one day that I hope to achieve, getting to that level. It’s just crazy to see that competition at the highest level, the highest stage.

Q: It’s pretty crazy to see Oklahoma win 53 games in a row, right?

A: It’s really crazy to watch Oklahoma play. Their energy is just insane. Even if they get walked, they’re jumping up and down. They have the same energy if they get walked or hit a home run. That’s something that I love. I think if a team has that kind of energy, it’s always fun to watch.

Q: Will you be taking any time off this summer to take a nice beach vacation or any sort of break like that?

A: I’m actually flying right from California to Virginia Beach to meet up with my family for our beach vacation [after PGF nationals at the end of July]. And then I’m heading to some college camps — Duke, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Tennessee and Michigan. I’m trying to get ready for Sept. 1 as much as I can.

Q: That’s the first day you can officially talk to college coaches about scholarships, right?

A: Yep. Sept. 1 is the first day they can call you on the phone, talk about scholarship offers and all that kind of stuff. Official visits, unofficial visits, all that stuff.

Q: Even though your team came up just short in the WPIAL championship game, have you been able to appreciate what you and the team accomplished this year now that you’ve had some time to reflect?

A: Absolutely. I think our freshmen came up to play this year. Especially Emry Rice and Neve Miller, they really stepped up and did a great job filling those positions of seniors who graduated, just being competitive at the varsity level. I’m super proud of them for that. I think our team is pretty young. We only had three seniors, I think, who started. [The year after next] is going to be tough, because we have a really big senior class next year. That would definitely be a hard one. But I think our team is pretty young, and next year, we’re going to be coming back and have that goal in mind.

Q: What are your thoughts on the PIAA only including one WPIAL team in the state tournament in Class 6A?

A: I think we kind of got [cheated] a little bit there. There are some other classes taking four teams from WPIALs. For [Class] 6A only to take one, I think that’s a little bit unfair. I don’t want to be too negative about the whole situation. Hempfield deserved that win. They deserved to be in that playoff run, but I do think it would be a little more fair if they took at least two teams. Every other class, they take two to four. I think for [Class] 6A, even though we have a smaller number of teams, I think we should have that ability to take two teams to states. 

Q: Who was the toughest hitter you had to face this year?

A: Honestly, probably Deirdre Flaherty from Mt. Lebo. She is crazy good. She was tough. Honestly, every time she came up to bat, she was a tough out. She was a tough batter. She was a tough player.

Q: Who got the better of those matchups?

A: She hit a home run off of me. I think I walked her once, and I believe I got her out the rest of her at-bats.

Q: Now that your high school career is halfway over, what can we expect to see from you as a junior and senior?

A: Obviously, just pushing myself to get better to try to reach these personal goals, a couple personal goals that I have before I leave high school. Hopefully a commitment next year, at least verbal, for college, I’m hoping. Because that’s the goal. To play at the highest D-I level is the biggest goal that I have. But obviously going back to WPIALs and states and making a little bit of a better run than we did this year is going to be a big goal of mine.

I think also to step up and be the biggest leader I can on my team is also a big goal that I have. I think being older — I don’t want to say old, but an older player on my team, just taking that on. I think being a leader, it’s a little bit hard as an underclassman, but now that I’m an upperclassman, I want to take that role of being a leader and bring as much energy as I can to the field and have the most success we can.

Q: You finished with 269 strikeouts this year without qualifying for the state playoffs. Do you think you can hit 300 strikeouts in a season?

A: That would be really crazy. I think I hit 400 between my first two years. That was a goal of mine.

Q: So if you have 400 strikeouts already, do you think you can make it to 1,000 before you graduate?

A: That’s a long-term goal before I leave high school, to hit 1,000. Just working toward that next year and my senior year, that would definitely be something that I’m shooting for.