As a youngster, Jordan Haines played little league baseball with the boys.
“She could play with them, no problem,” Upper Merion coach John Whitney said.
These days the Upper Merion senior has found a home on the softball diamond, and she is reaping the benefits of her years of working at a sport that is her passion.
Haines recently signed a letter of intent to accept a softball scholarship to the University of Hartford. It marked the culmination of a recruiting process that began the fall of her sophomore year. She selected Hartford from a list that included St. John’s, Fordham and St. Joseph’s University.
“I liked the campus and the setting,” she said. “I liked the coaches, and I thought it fit well with what I was looking for.”
“I always wanted to play in college. I would always watch the college World Series.”
Haines, who hit close to .500 as a junior, played shortstop for the Vikings last season although catcher is her natural position.
“She’s just a very versatile,” Whitney said. “Last year I knew colleges were looking at her for catcher, but I had a senior catcher and Jordan, so in order to accommodate a couple of kids, I asked Jordan if she would mind playing shortstop, and she loved it.
“She played great at shortstop. She’s just a really good kid who’s always there practicing hard.”
Whitney knew about Haines long before he coached her at the high school level.
“I had an opportunity to watch her growing up because I umpire, so I saw her coming up through the system,” he said. “Just watching her years ago – just the way she works, and she’s just a tremendous player.”
Haines tried other sports and even took up boxing for two years, but her heart belonged to softball.
“Jordan concentrates on softball,” Whitney said. “That’s all she wanted to ever do. A lot of coaches tried to get her out for other things, but she pretty much just played softball, and it shows.”
Haines can hit the cover off the ball or throw some leather at you, most notably behind the plate where she is a standout defensive catcher.
“She has a strong throwing arm, and she knows how to stop the ball,” Whitney said. “She stops everything. A lot of catchers just use their gloves where Jordan moves her body and gets her body in front. She just has tremendous skills that way.”
As a junior, Haines earned first team all-league and all-area honors at shortstop.
“I could have put her in the outfield, and she would have made all-league,” Whitney said. “That’s the kind of kid she is. She’s just a natural athlete.
“She’s a tremendous hitter. She hits it all over the place. She can hit for power, but most of the time she just ripped shots in the gaps. She’ll hit doubles and a couple of triples. She’s just a good-hearted kid who loves to play the game. She’s a joy to coach.”
Haines’ route to the top of her sport was relatively conventional once she was introduced to the sport at the age of 10 when she could no longer play community baseball. Haines joined the travel circuit when she was 12 years old when she began playing for the Lower Perk Extreme.
Two years later, she joined the New Jersey Gold Nightmare where she boasts a career batting average of .285 with 109 hits and 60 RBIs in 382 at-bats for the elite program.
“Jordan’s skill set and work ethic will fit smoothly into our program,” Hartford coach Todd Randall said in a press release on the program’s web site. “She is a legitimate run producer for a solid ASA team, and we trust she will transition that to the next level.”
Haines will major in biology with the goal of one day becoming a cardiologist.
“It’s exciting,” she said.
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