Last spring, the Syracuse softball coaching staff made a recruiting trip to California to see Tonye McCorkle’s travel team. The problem for the freshman was they weren’t there to see her.

‘Syracuse wasn’t even interested in me at first,’ McCorkle said. ‘They came out to see Kim Weinstein (an eventual SU recruit). I e-mailed them, and they came out and watched me play too.’

The Orange is thankful for that e-mail these days.

The leftfielder is the catalyst at the top of a hard-hitting SU lineup, which has sparked the Orange to its best Big East start in school history.

Just days after sweeping No. 25 DePaul, McCorkle and SU are back in action today when they host Niagara in a non-conference doubleheader at 3 p.m. at Syracuse Softball Stadium.

Names like Alexis Switenko, Cassie Morales and Heather Kim receive most of the praise for SU’s offensive prowess, but it is McCorkle who is normally on base when the heart of the lineup comes up and delivers runs.

McCorkle’s .379 batting average is the second-best on the Orange and her .433 on-base percentage is third best – both important statistics as a lead-off hitter.

In the DePaul doubleheader, McCorkle hit 3-for-8 with three runs scored and two runs batted in.

‘She sets the stage for us a lot,’ SU head coach Mary Jo Firnbach said. ‘Tonye is money. She’s big-time; she just gets good at-bats the majority of the time. Very few times will she freeze up at the plate.

‘She really is a tough out every time she goes up there.’

SU is outscoring its opponents by a score of 47-18 in the first inning, and McCorkle is a big reason why.

She has batted first in 25 out of SU’s 37 games and in her first at-bat is hitting .364 with a .440 on-base percentage. In fact, McCorkle has reached base 12 out of the 25 total times she has led off.

‘As lead-off hitter, I just try to get on and start the game right,’ McCorkle said. ‘My first at-bat is really important. At the beginning of the game we want to score early.’

McCorkle was a lead-off hitter all through high school and on her travel team. She says the pressure of batting first doesn’t affect her at all; actually, McCorkle thinks she feels most comfortable with a deep count, when she can relax her batting stance the most.

‘I always know that it takes just one pitch to get it done,’ McCorkle said.

On a team full of home run hitters, she isn’t exactly the prototypical slap-hitting lead-off type.

McCorkle leads the team with 36 hits but 10 of them are doubles, also good enough for most on the Orange. She broke open a game against Villanova on April 1 with her first career grand slam.

Not bad for the smallest player on the Orange.

‘I’m not much of a homerun hitter,’ McCorkle said. ‘So the small ball idea really applies to me. Just getting the hits to get on is helpful.’

Fellow freshman Heather Kim appreciates all of the little things McCorkle does on the field.

‘Tonye is clutch,’ Kim said. ‘You know that she’s not going to just get on base, she’s going to make something happen. I can’t even count the number of times she’s had a little pop fly fall in and she’s taken the extra base.’

SU started the season without McCorkle at the top of the lineup. She missed the first nine games due to illness, nine games that were especially painful for McCorkle, who could only help but watch from the dugout.

In her first collegiate at-bat against Eastern Michigan at the Buzz Classic in Atlanta, McCorkle singled, becoming the first SU player since 2001 to have a hit in her first career plate appearance.

One person who helped McCorkle manage the disappointment of missing the first two tournaments was her older sister, Sheila, a senior on No. 15 Northwestern.

‘She’s helped me through my hard times,’ McCorkle said. ‘When I have a rough at-bat she’s like, ‘Are you kidding me? You have four more; it’s a long game.’ It helps me a lot.’

McCorkle had a leg up coming into SU with the experience of her sister. McCorkle said her sister would tell her how fast-paced the college game is, which gave McCorkle a better idea of what to expect and how many at-bats she would see.

Kim says it’s hard not to see what McCorkle brings to the table. Perhaps it might be the reason why all it took was an e-mail and a brief look in person to attract Syracuse’s attention.

How perfect it is for the short, soft-spoken outfielder to end up as one of the keys to SU’s surprising success.

Said Kim: ‘I don’t think anyone could overlook what Tonye does.’

Published on April 11, 2006 at 12:00 pm