Ithaca’s Plue having breakout junior year

The Ithaca High School softball team does not have any seniors on its 14-player roster, but junior Jenna Plue is in her fourth year of varsity softball and has made noticeable improvements this season. Plue’s stats jump off the page, hitting .421 at the plate and striking out 56 batters in 37 innings as of May 25.

This success came after her sophomore season was scrapped, which gave her plenty of time to work on her game in the offseason. Still, she did not anticipate this kind of performance.

“I definitely didn’t expect me to dominate this much,” Plue said. “But I did put in a lot of work over the winter. I pretty much went every day for at least an hour and just kept working on my skills. I have a pitching coach that I go to, and we just kept honing my craft, and I definitely didn’t expect to dominate on the mound.”

Plue worked hard with her pitching coach Cara Martin, a former Division I pitcher for Binghamton University, at her coaching academy in Binghamton to clean up her pitching motion, resulting in more power and speed in her delivery.

The long layoff did affect her at the plate though, as Plue was held to just one hit in the first three games of the season. However, she’s exploded since then, going 7-10 with five extra-base hits including two home runs in her last four games.

“I’m glad all the work that I put in through the winter is paying off,” Plue said. “In the beginning of the season, it was my first time playing a live game in a little while. I have played with my travel team, but I was just getting back in the swing of things because of COVID. Then, I straightened it out against Elmira, and it just kind of all went up from there.”

Considering the growth she has shown this year, Plue looked back at the start of her varsity softball journey that began in eighth grade.

“[I’ve grown] maturitywise,” she said. “Being an eighth-grader on varsity, you’re definitely a lot less mature. In eighth grade, I did get to play with my older sister, so having her to talk to was always great about certain things. Also, just getting to face good players from other teams like Corning, Elmira, Horseheads, just getting to face these older players. These girls were four or five years older than I was, and just getting that experience was really good.”

Plue comes from a softball family, with her older sister Jessica playing collegiately at Onondaga Community College and her father Al being the assistant coach of her Ithaca Little Red team. Jenna recalled getting into the sport when she was very young.

“It was definitely my dad,” she said. “We just kind of tried it. I started playing when I was 5 years old, just a little tee-ball. But I fell in love with it and I just kept moving up. I never aged out of the age groups because I always just wanted to be one step ahead. I always wanted to push myself and just try to be a better ballplayer.”

While she frequently played against older opponents throughout her life, Plue never quite knew she could be this successful at softball until a few months ago. That confidence has come to her and has made an even more dangerous player.

“Whenever you’re working over the winter, you don’t really see yourself progress,” Plue said. “But when you see people you haven’t seen in a while, they’re seeing all this growth. They say, ‘Oh my God, you’ve grown so much.’ I don’t feel like I’ve grown, but then I get feedback from my pitching coach and she says, ‘From what you started, it’s just great, and I don’t doubt that you could be playing collegiately.’ So, that’s always nice to hear from people that you’re close to.”

That self-belief is one of the biggest differences Plue has experienced this year. It also helps that she is not one of the youngest players on the field anymore.

“I’ve definitely developed more confidence in myself,” she said. “I’ve always had a little bit of self-doubt, especially being a young varsity player. You always look up to other players from different teams and think, ‘Am I really supposed to be here?’ You just need to have confidence in your skills and your instincts and just kind of believe in yourself.”

Being a junior, Plue has plenty of time before she commits to a collegiate program. However, she has the goal of playing at the Division I or II level after graduating from IHS. She’ll be taking the next step toward those goals when Ithaca faces Union Springs on June 1 at Wells College.