Farm system: Oakdale softball’s success starts at the youth level

Like the back-breaking work of a farmer, Larry Loger has turned the Oakdale High School softball program into a regional power by seeding the pot.

The Mustangs have bolted to a 4-0 start with convincing victories over large-school opponents, including potential league champions Ceres (Western Athletic Conference), Gregori (Modesto Metro Conference) and Merced (Central California Conference).

Oakdale will begin its hunt for a Valley Oak League crown Thursday with a lineup Loger has been shaping for years. The Mustangs boast a balance of youth and experience, next-level talent and three front-line starting pitchers.

Nine players have committed to four-year universities, including a program-record four to Division I programs.

Yes, this year’s crop should be bountiful.

“We got a chance to be something very special,” said Loger, whose team will open league at home against Kimball. “We’ve got seniors. We’ve got two freshmen that are starting. We got a sophomore starting.

“Everything has to go well for us to have the type of season we think we can have, but we’re set up to have a very special season.”

Success doesn’t happen overnight for the five-time Sac-Joaquin Section champion and perennial VOL title contender.

It’s a meticulous process, Loger said, one that takes years to bear fruit. It begins on the diamonds of the Oakdale Baseball & Softball Association (OBSA), for which Loger, a former fastpitch softball player, is a rooted board member.

Loger is in his 20th year on the board, and each spring, the Oakdale coach requires his girls to donate 50 hours of service to the youth organization that helped spawn them. On Saturday, the Mustangs helped host a clinic for 150 girls, instructing them on the fundamentals of the game.

Senior Maddi Hackbarth spent eight hours at the field, working with a wide range of ages and skill levels. The Fresno State-bound catcher taught tee-ball players how to hold a bat and 10-and-unders how to field their positions.

“You get a kick of out of some of the girls,” she said. “They make you smile and have a good time.”

What’s more, Loger has extended an open invitation to all OBSA youth teams this season. Should they attend an Oakdale game in uniform, they’re invited onto the field afterward to mingle and take pictures.

Loger looks through a long lens.

That relationship helps foster a love for sport and program that sustains success. That relationship has helped create a farm system in a one-school town.

“I’ve been coaching a lot of these girls since they were 7 years old,” Loger said. “I’ve got pictures of a 10-and-under team and I’m their coach – and I’m still their coach today. It’s been pretty fun. ... If I start coaching them when they’re 7 and 8 years old, they know how I want them to bunt; they know how I want them to do this or do that. It all feeds together into our success.”

Today’s varsity players accept the responsibility of role model. After all, they were once wide-eyed and new to the game, too.

“They remember that they were that little kid,” Loger said. “We all know that’s where we started. The little girls idolize these girls. They don’t idolize me or the program. They look up to the girls because they see them around town.”

Said Hackbarth: “Some of the girls go and help out the youth teams. They go to practices and they go to games. It has definitely had an impact on how successful we’ve been in my four years. The girls know what to expect and what needs to be done once they get here.

“You represent not just yourself or your family but your whole town. It’s something, as a team, we take pretty seriously.”

Freshman pitcher Lexi Webb is the latest to come up through that farm system.

Hackbarth remembers watching Webb as a sixth-grader and realized then the two would be batterymates one day.

Webb struck out 10 batters in her varsity debut, going the distance in a 7-3 win over Gregori on March 1.

“Lexi has got all the ups and downs, ins and outs,” Loger said. “And she’s our No. 4 hitter as a freshman.”

As impressive as Webb is from the chalked circle, she has even more upside at the plate. With her power and fine eye, Loger said she’s launching balls to places never reached by a player under his watch.

“She said the other day after one of our games that she had been waiting her whole life to pitch on that field,” Loger said. “That makes you feel good when you hear stuff like that.

“We have a pretty strong young program, a good JV and a pretty good seventh- and eighth-grade program. So the future looks good.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 2:58 PM with the headline "Farm system: Oakdale softball’s success starts at the youth level."