SCARBOROUGH — When Mo Hannan has the ball in her hand in the pitching circle on a softball field, it’s best not to underestimate her.
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Oh, Hannan may smile between pitches. She may even joke with a teammate, or even opponents, many of whom she considers friends. But when it comes time to pitch, there is no one more focused than the Scarborough High senior.
She’s generally regarded as one of the top two or three pitchers in the state. It’s hard to imagine anyone better than her.
She has a career record of 25-2, both losses at the hands of South Portland and Alexis Bogdanovich (now pitching at Saint Anselm College). Two of the wins have come in state championship games.
She has a career earned-run average of 0.37. She has struck out 336 batters and walked only 32 in 170 innings.
Need more? Well, she’s a career .510 hitter who has scored 71 runs.
“She’s the kind of kid every coach would like to have,” said Ralph Aceto, coach of rival South Portland. “The ultimate competitor. She’s probably their best hitter, their emotional leader. She’s the type of kid, when you’re playing against them, that would just as soon take that last cookie off your plate as look at you.”
Tom Griffin, the veteran Scarborough coach, said he’s serious when he talks about pitching Hannan less this year. After all, he’s got four other pitchers — Erin Giles, Alyssa Williamson, Dominique Burnham and Chelsea Damon — who could be No.1s on most other teams.
And she plays shortstop as well defensively as anyone in the state, so there’s a good reason to have her in the field.
Wherever she plays, Griffin knows he has a special player.
“She’s probably the best all-around player I’ve ever had,” he said. “When you look at all the things she brings to the team. Hitting. Fielding. She runs really well. She’s got great savvy for the game, great intellectual instincts for the game.
“She just brings so much to the table. And I just love the way she plays and approaches the game.”
Griffin likes that Hannan doesn’t get frustrated or upset when things don’t go her way. She just regroups and tries to have fun.
“She’s actually pretty funny,” said Megan Murrell, Scarborough’s catcher and a close friend of Hannan’s. “She jokes around a lot. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect with her. She likes to have fun.”
But, said Murrell, Hannan “is a lot more serious during the game. She’s zoned in to what she’s doing. She knows how to focus during the game.”
Hannan keeps everyone loose, even in tight games.
“Everyone looks up to her because she’s fun to be around,” said Murrell. “If it’s, like, a close game, everyone feels the pressure of it. But she doesn’t let it get to her.”
Hannan, who will play at Division II Southern New Hampshire University next year, shrugs her shoulders when asked about the pressure. “To be honest,” she said, “I love the pressure.”
She loves the one-on-one staredowns between batters and pitchers. She might get that mentality from having played basketball, which she gave up after her junior season.
Surprisingly, she said that was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. Basketball was my first love, the sport I fell in love with when I was little.”
But softball became the sport she was best at. And after suffering a knee injury playing basketball her sophomore year, she didn’t want to chance that again. So she turned her focus on softball where, she said, she doesn’t care where Griffin puts her.
“I just want us to win,” she said. “If it comes to that, it comes to that.”
Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at: mlowe@pressherald.com
Twitter: MikeLowePPH
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