Arnold's Sage Mickey finding her way inside the circle

Against Bozeman in Thursday's Bay County Softball Tournament semifinals at North Bay Haven, Arnold's Sage Mickey tossed her first career seven-inning shutout in the circle, allowing just one hit and striking out three batters.

The win was her sixth this year and it dropped her ERA to 2.84 on the season. It's not bad for a player who had pitched exactly 2 1/3 innings in her entire varsity career before this season.

"I think it has definitely been a surprise," Mickey said of her pitching success this season. "I definitely did not expect to be pitching in my junior year."

Mickey started off her career at Arnold playing centerfield as a freshman. After star shortstop Ashley Troutman graduated in 2019, Mickey took over her spot in 2020. The idea of her moving to pitcher as a junior came out of necessity after the Marlins lost their top three pitchers.

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Arnold coach Rick Green originally broached the subject of Mickey becoming the Marlins' No. 1 starter with her last summer. She thought he was joking.

"Of course we always joke around like, 'hey let me pitch, coach Green,' and over the summer he came to me and was like, 'you may have to do it,'" Mickey said. "I was like, 'oh, you're funny, coach Green.' But he was like, 'no, Sage, I'm serious.' Right then and there I started putting in as much work as I could to pitch because of course you don't want to let your team down. I want to be there for them as much as they're there for me."

Mickey started pitching every day in practice in the summer and fall with a heavy ball to increase her velocity, often staying even after her teammates had left to pitch against a wall.

Green said the move took a little bit of convincing for Mickey, a college prospect at shortstop, though once she got on board, Green said she was 100 percent committed to making it work.

"It wasn't a quick one-day sell, but she's bought all the way into it and she's come a long way," he said. "She's gotten better and she works at it on her own on the weekends.

"Sometimes you just have to make a sacrifice for your team and that's what she has done. That's just the type of young lady and the type of athlete she is."

Of course Mickey didn't immediately find success in the circle. She walked nine batters and gave up eight earned runs in her first game of the season, a 9-8 loss to Franklin County.

Mickey admitted that there have been times this season where she has scuffled and had to ask herself some version of 'what have I gotten myself into?' in the middle of a game.

"Of course," she said. "Me and coach Green, sometimes I'll look at him like, 'oh man,' because I don't have that mentality as a pitcher and I have such a new respect for pitchers. I always have had respect for pitchers, but now that I'm in the circle I've got big respect for them."

Despite some early stumbles, Mickey has been pretty solid in the circle this season. Since that nine-walk performance, she hasn't walked more than four batters in a game, walking two or fewer on nine separate occasions.

While the walks have been low, so have the strikeouts. Mickey has just 40 strikeouts in 62 1/3 innings this season, meaning opposing batters are putting the ball in play and forcing the Arnold defense to make plays.

For a pitcher who hadn't done much pitching before this season, that's just about the most that Green could've expected.

"She's not striking out a lot of people. She gets excited when she gets a strikeout," Green said. "But she's giving our defense a chance to play behind her. That's all we can ask her to do."

The pitching certainly hasn't interfered with what Mickey does best: hitting the ball really hard and running the bases really fast. Mickey is batting .521 thus far with five home runs, 21 RBI, 30 runs, and 13 stolen bases. She's sporting a .549 on-base percentage with a 1.020 slugging percentage, both tops on the team.

While her arm has given the Marlins (8-6) a chance to win games this season, it's her bat and legs that will give her the opportunity to play college softball.

"She's just a gifted athlete," Green said. "She's run a 2.89 (seconds) from home to first and that's flying. She's run under 5 seconds in the 40-yard dash. She can move. She's a girl that's gonna be recruited to play college softball as a shortstop who is sacrificing for her high school team because she loves to compete and she wants to win.

"Hopefully we've got some people coming up from eighth grade that are pitchers that will give her a chance to go back to her natural position next year."

Ever eager herself to get back to shortstop for her senior season, Mickey has done some scouting of her own to see who might be able to take her place in the circle in 2022.

"I've been looking into it," she said. "There's a young girl coming up, she's pretty good. She'll be a great asset to the team. There's a bunch of girls, some young talent coming up, which is nice. Hopefully we'll get a pitcher in so I can go back to shortstop. But until then I've got to do what I've got to do for the team. This is definitely not where I see myself in the future, but sometimes you have to sacrifice for the team and we're all making sacrifices out there."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Arnold High School's Sage Mickey finding her way inside the circle