ALL SMILES

By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

May 9^th, 2018

As an elite softball player at Vacaville (Calif.) High School, Julia DePonte had plenty of options during the college recruiting process.

With multiple scholarship offers, DePonte put together her priorities- a checklist, if you will- to help make a final decision. For starters, it was important that her school of choice had outstanding academic programs. Also, she preferred to remain on the West Coast.

Lastly, and this was a big one, DePonte wanted a softball program that could win a national championship.

The day she selected the University of Washington, DePonte immediately achieved two of her three goals. Without a doubt, Washington was exceptional academically. It was also on the West Coast.

That left just one goal, one that she still works toward today. Though the Huskies have continued to be top contenders, including a third-place finish at the 2017 Women’s College World Series, DePonte has yet to experience the joy of a national championship.

Winning a national title “is what I came here to do,” said DePonte, a senior outfielder. “I’ve already checked two things off (my list), but there’s one box that’s still unchecked.”

Closing out her UW career with an NCAA championship “would be really special,” she went on. And after finishing the regular season with a sweep of Oregon State, “we’re on the right track. It’s about performing at the right time and continuing to do what we do, which is playing Husky softball.”

Leaving Oklahoma City, site of the May 31-June 6 Women’s College World Series, with the title trophy “would be really special and really cool, not only for yourself, but for your coaches and for your program,” she said. “It’d be such an honor that you’d hold with you for the rest of your life.”

DePonte grew up in Vacaville, a city of about 100,000 people that straddles I-80 midway between Sacramento and the Bay Area. As a young girl she played competitive softball, basketball, soccer and tennis, and she was sometimes juggling two sports at once. There were times, she said, “when I’d be going from a soccer tournament straight to a softball tournament, and vice versa.”

But as much as she enjoyed the other sports, and as good as she was at all of them, her love was always softball, though in the beginning it was actually baseball. She started out playing against boys “and I held my own with them. You can ask all of them.”

DePonte continued to excel at Vacaville High School, where she was the Monticello Empire League softball MVP both as a sophomore and a senior (a basketball knee injury kept her from playing softball as a junior), and a First Team All-State selection by Cal-Hi Sports. As a senior in 2014, she led Vacaville to a 29-1-1 record and the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D-1 championship.

All those successes helped DePonte become a prized recruit. What drew her to Washington, along with the school’s academic and softball excellence, was the opportunity she saw for personal development.

“Putting it over the top, I guess, was that I was going somewhere where I could grow as a person and become the best version of myself,” she explained. “And when I look back on it now, I made absolutely the best choice I could’ve made.”

DePonte started often as a freshman, and she has since started regularly, though she missed 14 games early in her junior year after re-aggravating her high school knee injury (she had surgery last summer and her knee is now strong again). She was primarily a third baseman early in her career, though she played first base a year ago and this season has been used mostly in left field.

If pressed, she admits to preferring the infield. “But I don’t really care as long as I’m out on the field. I’ll play anywhere. I even like playing outfield, too. But the infield, I think, has always been my [favorite],” she said.

But if she sometimes moves around defensively, her bat is usually right in the heart of Washington’s order. To date this season she is hitting .327 with a team-best 14 home runs. She is second on the team with 47 RBI and is one of four Huskies with a slugging percentage over .600. DePonte leads the team in that category, followed up by Kirstyn Thomas at .653, Taylor Van Zee at .614, and Sis Bates at .606.

“Julia is just a ball of energy,” said head coach Heather Tarr. “She’s super competitive at every single thing she does. She’s just a high achiever who wants to win on the field and wants to be the best at whatever she’s doing.”

The Huskies started the season at a remarkable pace, winning 41 of their first 43 games and spending nine weeks atop the NCAA Division 1 softball rankings. The six losses that came next against UCLA and Oregon were disappointing, of course, but hardly deflating as the team wrapped up the season with a clean sweep of Oregon State on the road. After that comes the 64-team NCAA Tournament.

“I think everyone’s seen what we can do and what we’re capable of,” DePonte said. “We have two pitchers [in Taran Alvelo and Gabbie Plain] that can beat anybody anytime. We started off the season really well, but there’s ups and downs to every season. [The losing streak] is just part of the game.

“What matters is who wins the last game in Oklahoma City. And we can do it. We have all the opportunities we need and we’re in the right spot, I think. It just matters about finishing.”

If camaraderie counts (and most players and coaches will insist it does), then the Huskies have an added edge as they prepare for the postseason.

“Camaraderie is what sets teams apart from each other,” DePonte said. “I think it’s the most important thing. My sophomore year, we had the best talent one through nine [in the lineup]. We were loaded, but we didn’t even make it to the World Series that year. I don’t think we were necessarily together. But last year we had two really good seniors to maybe change the culture of our team and make our team cohesiveness the most important thing … and we made it to the World Series.

“So I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. I’ve seen it when we weren’t [together] and I’ve seen it when we were. And the culture’s been changed this year because of what happened last year, and that’s why we’re in the position we are.

“We’re a team,” she added. “Everybody plays a role, whether it’s the number-one hitter or the person sitting on the bench.”

Regardless of how the coming weeks play out, DePonte is nearing the end of her college career. She will graduate in June with a degree in communications, and then head to South Bend, Ind., where she will pursue a master’s of science degree in management at the University of Notre Dame. The degree, she explained, “is a business program for people who didn’t major in business. … It’s pretty much like getting your business degree in one year.”

Her future plans are still unfolding, in part because her two dream jobs have nothing to do with communications or business. Or, for that matter, softball.

“My dream job is to become an astronaut,” DePonte said with one of her great smiles, “and my other dream job is to become a Michelin star chef. But I’m not an astrophysicist, I’m not an astrobiologist, I’m not a mathematician, and I’m not a genius, so I’m obviously not going to become an astronaut. So even though those would be my dream jobs, being a consultant for a company or investment management is sort of the path I’m going to be on.”

As she prepares to leave Washington, DePonte expects to take away many great memories along with a lot of meaningful life lessons.

Among the latter, she said, is a motto Tarr likes to preach that is applicable in both sports and in life- how you do anything is how you do everything.

“It’s not just about performing on the softball field,” DePonte said. “It’s about performing on the academic side, it’s about performing in your social life and in other stuff like that. I think that’s one of the most important things I’ll take away from this program is just how you do anything is how you do everything.”

When she looks back, DePonte also expects to savor her vast array of experiences as a Washington student-athlete.

“We have a lot of history here at UW,” she said. “We may not have all the national championships [of other programs], but we’ve always been super close. We’ve had many great players before us, and now for us it’s all about leaving a legacy behind. Respecting the people that came before you, and then honoring them and trying to live up to them.

“That’s one thing I’d like people to remember. It’s not about you personally. It’s about everything else around you. We represent the University of Washington, and that’s something that’s really cool. It’s a great honor and it’s been so cool to have this opportunity.”

But as much as players like DePonte give to the program and the university, they also benefit in profound ways. To call it life-changing is rather a cliché, but it is also completely true.

“When I stepped on this campus [as an incoming freshman], I wasn’t the same person that I am today,” DePonte said. “The life experiences, there’s been so many to even talk about. Perseverance and time management and being a teammate and all those things, it’s stuff you can carry on into your [adult] life. And I’m very thankful for that.

“As far as my experience personally, I’ve loved all of it. I love the university, I love my major, I love my classes, and I love how everything is run here. But most importantly I love what I’m going to take away from being a Husky. You learn new things every single day. Sometimes it’s hard. It can be really hard, and some things happen that you can’t even imagine.”

Ultimately, though, “it’s about pushing through all those things that have made me who I am,” she said. “Because if I can do this, I can do anything.”