SMITHSON USES PRESSURE TO HER ADVANTAGE

Caroline Smithson might just be immune to pressure.

Last Friday night Smithson, a senior first baseman, came to the plate with the bases loaded in a 2-2 game.

It wasn't just another at bat. It was the top of the seventh inning of the District 3A-4 tournament championship game.

Quickly in an 0-2 hole, Smithson fouled off three pitches before laying off a couple of balls out of the strike zone, then laced a base hit into right field to score two runs and the Lady Bearcats went on to a 5-3 win.

But, to hear Smithson tell it, the hit wasn’t all that special.

No, she is not being facetious.

“it’s not like it was a spectacular hit, it was just on the ground and hard and it found a gap,” said Smithson. “I guess the pressure of it kind of made me more aggressive."

Smithson also deflects some of the credit for the winning hit in an inning that began with a Lexi Franklin home run.

“Lexi got the dinger and we were in the mindset of ‘we’re trailing and it’s the seventh inning, and we haven’t been hitting well all game. All of a sudden the mood shifted – it’s a ball game now. ' Then the three girls in front of me got on (base).”

One of those, came in an intentional pass to Hayley Lunsford to bring Smithson to the plate. Insulting?

“I really didn’t mind. It kind of made me more motivated to hit the ball,” said Smithson.

It wasn’t the first time Smithson was in the middle of a game winning rally.

On April 14 Smithson led off the bottom of the seventh with the Lady Bearcats tied with Mayflower at 5-5.

She doubled, moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Karmen Kent, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Roni Tillery to end it.

“I think the ball went pretty much to the same spot,” Smithson said of her double against Mayflower.

Against Lavaca in the opening round of the Raymond Turner Memorial on April 2, Smithson came to the plate with two down and promptly singled to keep the inning going and the Lady Bearcats eventually won it with a walk-off walk.

On March 14, in just her second game, the Lady Bearcats and Paris were tied at 1-1 going to the fifth and it was Smithson who started a six run inning with a leadoff single.

All of that production from the eighth spot in the order, and it is from a player returning to the diamond for the first time since sixth grade when she was a shortstop and pitcher – but she insists of the later, “I wasn’t very good.”

But looking to play for a loaded Lady Bearcat team that had conducted tryouts last May?

“I wanted to play a sport that I could maybe do well in,” said Smithson. “I had played softball in the past and I thought maybe I could pick some of that stuff up. I enjoyed it whenever I played.”

But then Smithson could not have tried out last year, because she wasn’t here.

“That kind of made me think that I wasn’t going to play but I had talked to (Coach Ronnie) Denton and told him I know I wasn’t here for tryouts but would it be okay if I went to a couple practices and see if maybe I’d be good at this,” she said.

For Denton, the question resulted in the addition of a first baseman.

“They started me on first, I think because I’m so tall,” she said.

When tryouts were held Smithson was walking the halls of Class 6A Leander High School a little north of Austin, Texas before moving to Booneville as a senior because her father, Stu, accepted a minister position at First Booneville.

In Texas Smithson was more of a track and cross country star.

Smithson admits a senior year move presented challenges, in not pressure.

“It was an interesting position for sure, that’s not exactly an ideal year to move, but it’s been really great here,” said Smithson.

It wasn’t just a new school, though. Smithson’s mother, Sarah, is a 1996 BHS graduate, and grew up as a member of First Booneville. Sarah Smithson is also a junior high counselor.

“There were some unknowns but I was just going to roll with it and make the best of it. Everyone here is really nice and has been really inviting,” said Smithson. “I’ve gotten to do a lot of cool stuff here that I didn’t get to do in such a big school.”

Smithson did have some small school roots having lived in her father's home town of Lavaca – one of the teams she helped the Lady Bearcats beat – before her family moved to Virginia for a couple of years, and on to Texas.

During this school year Smithson was a regular at extracurricular activities early on, then took on the role of manager for the senior boys basketball team.

“We had just finished cross country season. I didn’t run very much over the summer and the training was different,” said Smithson. “We were at trunk-or-treat and my family were the Dentons with and coach Denton said ‘since cross country is over do you want to be a basketball manager?'

“I said why not and the next morning we took pictures for banners so it was right away.”

During basketball season she was selected the homecoming queen, making the Homecoming Court Royalty Walk at Booneville Elementary School with Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" blaring from the PA system.

Smithson is also her class valedictorian having had an academic career filled with seven Advanced Placement courses when she enrolled at BHS which could caused issues, but hasn't.

She added two more this year in AP Chemistry – the four-hour final test was today – and AP Biology, as well as a couple other concurrent credit courses.

Smithson also sports a 33 ACT score and has been awarded the Governor’s Scholarship.

Smithson is well on her way to Arkansas Tech University to enroll as a pre-veterinarian student. With the concurrent course schedule she’s maintained, Smithson should be a sophomore in August.

Before that, any down time will likely be spent outside. She loves to fish and hunt with her father.

Smithson has an older sister, Emily, and a younger brother, Cooper. Emily is a nursing student at UAFS and Cooper is a fifth grade student at BES.