Sophomore shortstop Sam Peters played all 53 games for Georgetown last year, leaving her mark on the Hilltop as soon as she stepped foot on it.

She played in all 56 this year and left her mark on the national scene, as she won the Division I all-independent player of the year award.

Peters said it was a surprise that she won – and that there were awards at all.

“They weren’t giving player of the week awards this year like they did last year,” she said. “I was told they weren’t giving out awards this year. I’m really excited.”

One could have been living under a rock all season and still picked Peters for the award. She led independent teams in home runs (16), RBIs (50) and batting average (.380). The 5-foot-4 Georgian also stacked up well against players at bigger-name schools: Peters cracked the top 100 nationally in average, home runs, RBIs, stolen bases, slugging percentage and triples.

She was the 5A player of the year in Georgia her senior year of high school and according to her coach that season, Bill Dooley, she was the best hitter on her team despite not hitting a home run.

Outside the batter’s box, Dooley said that Peters was generally not one to yell to motivate her teammates.

“She’s not the type to go up there and scream and yell, but we had a tradition where we would hit the top of the dugout to get everyone excited,” Dooley said.

But when her team finished a surprising sixth in its section and needed a deep tournament run to even qualify for the state playoffs, Peters and other seniors organized a players-only meeting, which surprised Dooley.

Before the next game, Peters and another senior rallied their troops in the dugout and did the worm.

“The first time I saw that, I had no idea what was going on. It was right there in front of the dugout before the game.” Dooley said. “But we won that game and we won the state tournament, so, it worked.”

Peters said that sophomore infielder Demetria Cipriano’s spot on the all-independent second team and sophomore pitcher Jennifer Connell’s honorable mention show that Georgetown is closer to being a competitive force in the Big East. The Hoyas will play their first season in the conference in the spring of 2009.

“The main thing is I’m excited about the Big East and playing in it,” she said. “We can look forward to rivalries and schedules that are set. And then we can work towards the tournament so at the end of the season we have that to look forward to instead of just being finished.”

The team, which went 21-35 in its third year of existence, would not have been as competitive this year or as ready for next year without Peters’ enormous bat.

She scored 46 of the team’s 195 runs and, when Bill James’ runs created statistics are applied to Georgetown softball, accounted for 37.3 percent of the runs Georgetown scored this year.

But oftentimes this season, Georgetown had trouble pushing runs across. The Hoyas were shut out eight times and were 6-11 in one-run games. When Peters’ and Cipriano’s stats are taken out, the team hit .203 and scored 111 runs in 56 games.

With players like Peters and Cipriano – who are also roommates off the field – Georgetown is closer to being competitive in the Big East than the 4-23 team of 2006. The Hoyas hit .205 and scored just 2.1 runs per game while surrendering 10.2 per contest in their inaugural season without Peters.

“Becoming a new team, we have a lot to look toward and build up to. We have to work hard every day,” Peters said. “We can’t have experience to push us through. We have to have heart and integrity to get us through. We can’t say, `Oh, we’ve been here before, we know we’ll make it through.’ We have to push on our own.”

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