MILL CREEK — From missing her entire sophomore season with an injury to following a long line of softball greats at Jackson High School, Allie Thomsen has focused on writing her own story. On proving people wrong.
A University of Washington softball commit, Thomsen commands attention any time she hits the field. With attention comes adoration after big hits and winning plays. It can also attract doubters.
In what looked like a transition year for the Timberwolves following the departure of four-time state champion coach Kyle Peacocke, especially after a 6-10 start to the season, Jackson became a team that was overlooked.
“Everyone looked at us as a team that was easy to beat,” Thomsen said. “I didn’t want that to be the end of my high school story. And I think this whole team didn’t want that to be the end. We didn’t have the strongest start to the season. We were never ranked on RPI, and I think a lot of people took that personal. I know I did. I just wanted to rewrite our story.”
So Thomsen picked up the pen.
She powered the offense, slashing .544/.651/.949 on the year with six home runs, 26 RBI and 20 runs scored. The Timberwolves went 9-2 down the stretch all the way to the 4A state semifinals as the 13th seed. In the end, they barely fell 2-0 to Skyview, the top seed and eventual champion.
Thomsen didn’t get a Hollywood ending — and not just because she’s joining the Huskies instead of USC or UCLA — but it’s quite a story she wrote in her senior season. It’s a story that ends with her selection as The Herald’s All-Area Softball Hitter of the Year.
“Her ability to hit the ball, (Thomsen is) one of the best all-around hitters I’ve seen in a long time,” said Jackson coach Larri Werner, who was also Thomsen’s Little League coach. “Just a great hitter. … When she gets a hold of it, it’s going over the fence. Sometimes it goes a mile in the air, sometimes it never leaves more than 30 feet and just screams over the fence.”
Perhaps most remarkable of her eye-popping numbers is the amount of times she struck out: just once. It didn’t happen until the state semifinal loss, against Skyview pitcher Maddie Milhorn, who is committed to the University of Oregon.
Thomsen was a valuable pitcher for the Timberwolves and plans to continue pitching in college, but her offensive prowess developed at an early age. Originally a right-handed hitter, Thomsen started hitting from the left side of the plate around the age of 10, which opened the door to slap hitting and bunting to better complement her speed.
It was an adjustment at first. She would call time if she reached two strikes and switch back to the right side of the plate for fear of striking out. She eventually caught on as a full-time lefty and remained a slap hitter, but she lost some speed as she grew into her 5-foot-10 frame. Eventually, at the 16U level, she was told to swing at the plate instead, and she started to recognize her full offensive potential.
Throughout that revolution, it armed her with a complete toolbox at the plate.
“I just think it provides versatility,” Thomsen said. “I don’t slap (hit) anymore, but if I’m super in a pinch or I’m really awful on this pitcher, I know I always have it in my back pocket. I can lay down a bunt, and I just think it provides the ability to do multiple things in an at-bat.”
Thomsen believes learning from Rachel Sysum, her teammate since Little League who graduated Jackson a year prior with a school-record 31 career home runs, helped her hitting improve dramatically. However, despite Thomsen’s full array of batting tools, Werner always wanted her to swing away rather than lay down bunts this season.
If she didn’t see a pitch she liked, Thomsen possessed the ability to foul anything off until she saw one she did. It’s a big reason why she only had one strikeout against 24 walks.
“Having a player like that come up to bat every time (with) base-runners in scoring position, you know, you’re able to score runs, and that changes the game drastically every time,” Werner said.
Things really started to change for Jackson as April flipped into May. After the slow start, Werner pointed to their 7-0 win against Glacier Peak on April 28 as the beginning of the turnaround, but in Thomsen’s opinion, it came against Monroe on May 5.
Earlier in the season, the Bearcats defeated Jackson 18-8 in five innings. With the rematch coming on the Timberwolves’ senior night, Thomsen and her teammates did not want to let them win again, especially not via run rule. Invoking an attitude akin to Michael Jordan in ‘The Last Dance,’ Jackson stormed to a 10-2 victory, which sparked them on their semifinal runs in both the District 1/2 Combined Tournament as well as the 4A State Tournament.
“We all just wanted revenge, almost,” Thomsen said. “We were like, ‘We don’t want that to happen again.’ So I think everyone, we talked before the game like, ‘We write our own story. What happened in the past, stays in the past. That doesn’t influence anything that happens today. Use that to, like, fuel your motivation. Just use that to be motivated,’ and I think, everyone, that’s exactly what we did.
“We kind of took those losses personal, and I think ever since that Monroe game, the dynamic worked really well.”
Proving doubters wrong along the way, Thomsen and the Timberwolves authored a season they could look back on with pride. As Thomsen realizes her dream of playing Division I softball at UW, she feels good about the legacy she’s leaving behind from all four years at Jackson.
“Through my whole Jackson career, I think I’ve made a pretty good name for myself.”
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