Senior shortstop Keira Clancy never lacks confidence when she steps on the field for Oak Forest.
But boy, those pregame jitters can be something else.
“Usually, it’s on the bus if it’s away or in the dugout at home,” Clancy said. “Sometimes, I just close my eyes and think about why I’m nervous.
“I just try to relax for a minute. And then honestly, it goes away when I’m playing.”
Clancy smiled when describing her mood on April 30 before the Bengals played two-time defending Class 3A champion Lemont.
“I think that was actually the most nervous I have ever been,” Clancy said. “I wanted to win so bad, especially since it was my senior year. It really started to sink in, knowing it was the last time we might play Lemont.”
Clancy had a career day with a double, triple, home run and five RBIs, leading the Bengals to a 13-7 victory. Her triple hit the top of the fence and bounced back in.
Take that, jitters.
“I was really excited,” Clancy said. “When we started hitting, we had the right energy. That made me confident that it was going to be a really good game.”
Clancy is having a standout senior season for Oak Forest (18-4). She is batting .425 with 26 runs, seven doubles, two triples, five home runs and 18 RBIs.
She’s one half of a solid middle infield duo with senior second baseman Mia Delisi.
It’s a winning combination.
“Keira is fun, she’s outgoing, everyone is confident in her, always,” Delisi said. “And if she ever gets down on herself after a missed play, I can go up and tell a joke, let her know we have her back, and she’ll bounce back.”
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On defense, the 6-foot-1 Clancy has a .943 fielding percentage. And with her height, she has some kind of reach that gets a rise out of senior outfielder Annabelle Rush.
“Haha … she can catch those line drives,” Rush said. “She has that vertical, and she makes a lot of catches that are really fun to watch.”
It’s fun for Clancy, too.
“A lot of people when I tell them that I’m a shortstop, they are like, ‘Really?’” Clancy said. “They all think I would be a pitcher or first baseman.
“But then they say, ‘Well, it probably helps you on the field for reaching those far balls.’ And it really does.”
Clancy was also an all-conference selection for basketball in the winter. She will be playing both sports at Moraine Valley.
It wasn’t always the case. Clancy, who said softball is her favorite sport, was going to give it up to concentrate on basketball.
“A few weeks after I visited and decided to play basketball at Moraine, the softball coach emailed me and asked me if I’d be interested,” Clancy said.
She also got a nudge from Rush, who will be joining her in softball at Moraine.
“I always thought she was going to play,” Rush said. “But when I went to visit, the softball coach wasn’t sure she’d be playing. I said, ‘I’ll get her to play.’”
How could she refuse?
“I think I thought that I was done with softball,” Clancy said. “I really don’t know what I was thinking. I guess my head was more in a basketball space during basketball season like it should have been.
“I thought, ‘Oh well, it’s fine that I won’t play softball.’ Annabelle did talk about it with me. She was like, ‘You know, you can play two.’ And when the coach emailed me, I decided that I would. I’m so happy that I changed my mind.”
Tony Baranek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.