In a senior season that is already outstanding to date, Sam Munger of Everett has a chance to do something even more special.
Munger, a 2011 graduate of Cascade High School, found out Monday morning that her St. Martin’s University softball team has qualified for the NCAA Division II tournament, and will open regional play Thursday against host Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. It is the next step in a journey that Munger and her teammates hope will ultimately lead to the national championship tournament in Oklahoma City later this month.
The chance to play in the postseason “is very exciting,” Munger said. “We’re all just excited to get back out there and show what we can do.”
It will be a tough assignment, to be sure. Dixie State has a 44-7 record, is the top-ranked team in the West Region, and has a 22-0 record on its home field this season.
But the way Munger sees it, the opener of the double-elimination regional tournament “is just another game, honestly. There’ll be dirt, bases, a mound and a plate, so it’s just another game to all of us.”
Moreover, there is also the dream of capping her senior season with a run to the national tournament, and perhaps even to a national championship.
“That’d be an awesome way to go out my senior year,” she said. “I just love this group of girls. It’s like a family. I’m not ready for it to end and I’m sure they’re not either.”
Certainly, the team’s success this season has a lot to do with Munger, who was the GNAC’s Pitcher of the Year and co-Player of the Year. Her 2.24 ERA led the conference in the regular season and her 22 pitching wins ranked second. Likewise, her .431 batting average was second in the league.
For those accomplishments, Munger was a unanimous All-GNAC selection while becoming only the seventh player in league history to be named to the all-conference team four times.
In those four seasons, her contributions to the St. Martin’s softball program have been “in one sense immeasurable,” said Saints head coach Rick Noren. “But I suppose if you look at the numbers it’s pretty measurable. And not only her batting average, but the extra-base hits, stolen bases and on-base percentage. At that point you see that she’s a well-rounded player that does just about everything for you offensively.
“And then when you combine that with the pitching numbers she’s put up, you see that she’s one of the most unique combinations ever,” he said.
Munger started playing softball when she was 5 and eventually joined Triple Threat, a top club team with players from in and around Snohomish County. She went on to win four varsity letters at Cascade and was a two-time first-team All-Western Conference pick, which led her to be recruited by several colleges in the Northwest and on the East Coast.
The funny thing is, Noren was in his first season as the St. Martin’s head coach and had yet to reach out to Munger. But some of her Triple Threat teammates were playing for the Saints and they encouraged her to contact Noren, which resulted in a recruiting visit.
“Just walking around, I fell in love with it right then and there,” she said of the Lacey campus.
Munger plays shortstop when she is not pitching and says she likes “both of them about equally. But if I had to choose, I’d probably choose pitching. Pitching is nice because you get to have the ball in your hand all the time.”
She throws six pitches — fastball, changeup, dropball, screwball, riseball and curve — and says “my best pitch would be my riseball. I didn’t have one coming into college, so it was new to me when I first threw it. But it’s a natural motion, so it’s easy to throw.”
Two year’s ago, the Saints reached the championship game of the regional tournament, only to fall to Humboldt State and miss out on advancing. Now Munger, who says her years at St. Martin’s “have gone by really fast,” wants to see the team capture a regional title and then maybe more.
“It’d just be an awesome way to go out for us seniors,” said Munger, who will graduate with a business degree and a minor in economics. “And it’d be something I’ll remember forever.”
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