Softball
Favorite athlete: Kobe Bryant
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory: Hitting a grand slam at nationals a few years ago
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I ran straight into a fence on a popup behind the plate and just bounced off and the ball ended up hitting me in the head.
Music on iPod: Country music
Future plans: College softball, graduate with a degree in finance, job in New York
Favorite motto: “You gotta want it as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”
One goal before turning 30: Be a millionaire
One thing people don’t know about me: I believe in aliens.
By Mary Jane Souder
Hollie Woodard can still remember the first time she met Dominique Pinto.
The then fifth grader was tagging along with her father to older sister Chloe’s optional summer softball workout.
“There was little tomboy Dom walking up the hill to the field with this huge smile,” Woodard said.
Seven years later, Pinto, now a Council Rock North senior, can still be found on the softball diamond, and she will most assuredly be smiling.
“She gets an absolute joy out of playing softball,” Woodard said. “And she gets a tremendous amount of joy out of this sisterhood we get from the team - the friendships, the bond she makes with her teammates.
“She’s got this unbelievable love of softball and has respect for the game. She would never do anything to disrespect the sport. She’s the absolute team player, and she makes everybody feel like they’re important.”
For her part, Pinto can’t imagine softball being anything but a joy.
“I don’t think I can be anything but happy playing softball just because the sport in general has such an effect on me,” she said. “I want other people to love it as much as I do because, in my eyes, I don’t see how anyone could not be obsessed with this game.”
As much as she loves softball, Pinto loves one thing even more - her family.
“I could go on for days about my family,” she said. “My dad, my mom and my sister – they’re the hands that I hit with and the legs that I run with.
“A lot of people are like, ‘If it wasn’t for this person, I don’t think I would be here,’ but I’m not kidding – if it wasn’t for my family, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.”
Where Pinto is right now is coming down the home stretch of a stellar four-year varsity high school career. She recently surpassed the career 100-hit milestone, an accomplishment that is magnified when taking into account that she did it in three-and-a-half seasons that did not include playoff games.
“She’s a fantastic hitter, and as an opposing coach, she’s got a really difficult swing to read,” Woodard said.
Pinto has parlayed her talents into a softball scholarship to the University of Connecticut where she has been accepted into its school of business and will major in finance.
“My sophomore year me and my dad sat down and we were talking, and he said, ‘This is the time you need to decide what you’re going to do in your future,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Dad, I know I want to play softball in college. That’s my goal, and I’m going to make it happen.’
“I think I always wanted to play since I was little. I just didn’t know it.”
What Pinto knew from the moment she stepped onto the softball diamond as a youngster was that she loved the sport, and by the time she was nine years old, she had outgrown the in-house league she was competing in, hitting the ball so hard that opponents were at risk.
It was around that time that her father, Vincent Pinto, started a Newtown Rock U10 team, and she has been part of that elite travel program ever since.
“I’ve just always gravitated toward softball,” Pinto said. “Softball has a way of not making me think of anything else. It’s the only thing I focus on. Whenever I’m having a bad day, I could have a game and I’ll be completely fine.”
Pinto was a pitcher early in her career but moved behind the plate when she was 11 years old and her team’s catcher broke her arm.
“I was a pitcher, but I was hitting girls all the time,” Pinto said. “I couldn’t control my pitches. It was bad.”
Pinto was a natural behind the plate and never left.
“I feel if I’m catching I can control aspects of the game,” she said. “I have a good relationship with every girl on my team, and if I can have a good relationship with my pitcher, I can calm her down and help her throughout the game, and I can do that best when I’m catching because I’m with her.”
According to Woodard, herself a former catcher, Pinto has all the right tools to excel.
“She has excellent spatial intelligence,” the Indians’ coach said. “She’s a very, very smart girl, so she really gets the gray matter associated with the game, and she understands where the player is supposed to be a.
“That puts her at an advantage as a catcher. She gets it, she sees it, and she always has since she was a freshman.”
Beyond that, Pinto was a born leader.
“The girls respond to her,” Woodard said. “She can tell someone to do something without making them feel like she’s belittling them or that she somehow thinks she’s better than them.
“In that same sense, she’s a very calming force. If she doesn’t appear to be rattled, the girls will not be rattled.”
Pinto also has a genuine affection for her teammates.
“She’s incredibly articulate, very good at expressing her feelings,,” Woodard said. “She has no problem telling them, ‘I love you guys – you’re my sisters, and I’ll do anything for you,’ and that’s really neat to have.
“There’s nothing fake about Dom. You know 100 percent where she’s coming from, how she feels about you.”
Pinto understood from the outset that her high school playing days were numbered.
“When my senior year started, it really hit me that I only have a few games left, but I think I’ve always played like that – I’ve played like tomorrow is going to be my last game,” she said. “Ever since I was a freshman, I was getting a game closer to never playing for this team again, so I tried to make the best out of every situation that I could.
“I think girls see that on my team and want to be like that. I want them to want to be there as much as I do. I want them to form relationships because that’s what it’s about. At the end of the day - 20 or 30 years from now, you’re not going to remember a trophy or medal you got. You’re going to remember everything you got on the field and the friendships you made.”
A fierce competitor, Pinto has earned the respect of her opponents.
“Other coaches really like her,” Woodard said. “You don’t want to like her when you’re on the other team, but you can’t help but just have a respect for her and the way she handles herself. She loves the game, win or lose.
“She’s always been on an average team, but she bleeds blue and white. She loves our program. She wouldn’t want to be on any other team. I think she likes the fight, I think she likes the challenge associated with it.”
Off the softball diamond, Pinto’s dream is to become extremely rich, a dream that is not motivated by greed.
“I think I want to be rich because I’m not even kidding – I want to be able to buy things for the people in my life who have been so important to me and done everything for me,” she said. “I want to give back to them at some point.”
Pinto points to her dad’s toughness, her mother’s encouragement and her sister’s support as instrumental in making her who she is today.
“When I was little, my dad was always, ‘You need to do this, this and this,’ and I was always like, ‘He just needs to relax,’” Pinto said. “When I look back on it, if I didn’t have that kind of figure in my life, I wouldn’t have made it to the point I’m at, I wouldn’t have the work ethic I have, and I wouldn’t be as hard on myself as I am.
“My mom (Cyndi) is always there at the end of the day after he grills me, and my sister is my total support system. Anything that’s ever happened in my life – she has always been there. She would do anything for me.
“It’s really hard. There’s drama with girls, and you realize there’s not a lot of loyal people that you can be friends with, that you know they’ll stick with you. It’s hard to find someone who would genuinely be happy for you and not be jealous or envious. My sister didn’t get the opportunity to play softball because she got hurt her senior year, but she can come back and cheer for me and my successes and never, ever have a hint of envy. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine life without my sister.”
Ask Pinto her dream job, and she has a ready response.
“I want to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs,” she said. “That’s what I’m aiming for.”
Woodard has her own thoughts about Pinto’s future.
“She talks about going into the business world, but in all honesty, I’ve said to her, ‘You’re such a natural leader that I think the world needs you in a more important role. I would love to see you go into politics. I would love to see you go into law,’” the Indians’ coach said. “She has ability – she makes friends and people love her.
“I was excited when Chloe graduated because I know Chloe is going to take on the world. Dom is such an impressive young woman, and I can’t wait to see what she is going to do.”
