Corinne Ozanne blasted a ball into center field that kept carrying. She was a junior at Southern Lehigh (Pennsylvania) High School and her shot cleared the temporary fence 200 feet away from home plate set up for softball games.

Then it cleared another fence 250 feet away and didn’t land for another 20 or 30 feet beyond that.

“Nobody, literally nobody in this area had ever hit a ball like she did when she was in high school,” Southern Lehigh head coach Brian Neefe said. “From a power standpoint, it’s beyond description.”

Ozanne, now a senior at Syracuse, has developed a reputation for being a power hitter. She’s gone from clearing fences in Lehigh Valley to doing the same in central New York. She already leads Syracuse in career on-base percentage and slugging percentage and is just 10 home runs shy of SU’s all-time record. And despite four different knee surgeries that have slowed her down, Ozanne has a chance to cement herself as one of the best hitters in Syracuse history.

“Yeah, it’s cool to break records,” Ozanne said. “It’s cool to do things that nobody else has before. But I’m more concerned about the overall team success.”

With each swing, Ozanne shifts her weight onto her back leg then in one motion explodes forward, swinging her arms and driving her right knee toward the ground. Sometimes she forgets to finish with the knee drive and the result is instant pain.

“If (assistant coach Alisa) Goler doesn’t say ‘drive your knee’ it’s like I just don’t do it,” Ozanne said. “So I have to focus on it more, because if I don’t it hurts.”

It used to be natural.

Standing in a gym at Southern Lehigh, Neefe saw a freshman on her first day of tryouts with a swing “about as perfect as you could possibly get.”

Mechanically it was sound. But her biggest asset was her bat speed. The faster she swung, the longer she could wait on each pitch and the more power she had to send it over the outfield fence.

“If you swing a bat with a lot of velocity it actually makes a sound,” Neefe said. “It wooshes through the air. And I don’t think there’s any bat that’s ever wooshed the way that Corinne was able to make her bat woosh.”

Ozanne derived the speed from a strength and conditioning program she started after tearing her ACL for the first time at the age of 13 playing basketball. Her parents forced her into it, but the more she went, the stronger and quicker her swing became.

By her junior year in high school, Ozanne broke the school record for walks in a season because teams wouldn’t pitch to her. A few of her home runs traveled 275 to 300 feet, Neefe said — dwarfing the average home run distance of about 200 to 210 feet.

“Her ability, that bat speed and that follow through,” SU head coach Mike Bosch said. “The power is just there.”

The second knee injury came her junior year of high school. Another basketball injury. This time a bucket-handle tear to her meniscus, which was repaired before another ACL tear that caused her to miss her entire senior season. Then a re-tear of her meniscus in her first year at Syracuse.

Each time, she rehabbed with a determination to “get back to what she was.”

“Mentally it’s a struggle to get through four knee surgeries,” Ozanne said. “I don’t wish that upon anybody, but I also know that it’s shaped me stronger mentally.”

With all the home runs, Ozanne never really “pimps” them by flipping her bat, she said. At SU, she’s shown off her moves in practice but only showcased them once in a game.

She remembers an opposing coach “talking down” to the Syracuse players and the pitchers not throwing to her. She took a ball that was intended to be outside, she said, and sent it over the opposite field fence before looking at the coach and tossing her bat.

“(It) was very not sportsmanlike of myself,” Ozanne said, “but it was in the heat of the moment, and I was not very thrilled with what he was saying.”

Ozanne has changed her batting stance “a lot” in the last three years. She’s had one that’s open and one that’s closed. A wide stride and none at all. The angle of her bat has changed and sometimes she finishes her swing with two hands, others it’s just one.

This year, Goler has helped Ozanne keep her hands in while swinging and be more selective with what pitches she swings at.

The results have always been consistent.

She led the Orange in batting average the last two seasons and was second-best her freshman year. All but once she’s led or been tied for the team lead in home runs.

This season, Ozanne will bounce around between shortstop, first base and designated player — who only bats — Bosch said. He’s worried about saving her knees.

Her senior year in high school, Ozanne was in line to break every career batting record, Neefe said, but her torn ACLs ended that shot before it began.

Now her second shot is just beginning.

Published on February 9, 2016 at 10:02 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus