Stephanie Becker: Tri-Cities softball captain

West Aurora senior Stephanie Becker has been intimidating opposing batters about as long she's been throwing a softball - even when those opposing batters wind up becoming best friends.

Mariah Barnak, a West Aurora senior and one of Becker's good friends, first met Becker playing in an Aurora youth league together. Only back then they weren't yet teammates.

Which made taking the softball field not nearly as much fun for Barnak as it has been the last four years on the same team at West.

"I was scared," Barnak said. "Back in the in-house league, I would dread the day I had to play against Stephanie Becker. Everyone was scared of her."

Not much has changed on area high school diamonds. Becker capped her record-setting career at West Aurora with an area-best 264 strikeouts this year and a 12-8 record, leaving her as the Blackhawks' all-time leader in both categories, and also the 2009 Captain of the Daily Herald All-Area Softball Team.

Becker is heading to bigger and better things next year in the SEC at Mississippi State, but she's leaving behind a high school she's loved playing at. West Aurora is in her blood, with her father Michael a 1980 graduate who played on the Blackhawks' 1980 third-place state basketball team, and her mother Kim, class of 1982, a third-grade teacher for 23 years in School District 129.

"High school has flown by," Becker said. "I remember freshman and sophoomre year like it was last year. All my seasons I have all good memories. West is great. Each year has been great. Things just keep getting better."

Becker broke 2001 graduate Taylor Peterson's school record of 750 strikeouts. She also would have bettered Peterson's single season strikeout record if not for a late-season injury, coming up 3 strikeouts short.

Becker burst on the scene with 133 strikeouts her freshman year, then upped it to 221 in just 159 innings as a sophomore, a year she also won the All-Area Captain.

Becker added 200 more strikeouts last year giving her 818 in her career.

West Aurora assistant coach Neal Ormond got a first-hand look at both Becker and Peterson, who earned a scholarship to Syracuse befor returning home to finish her college career at Aurora University.

"Different kind of pitchers," Ormond said. "(Becker is a) lefty, tall, throws with a lot of power, Peterson was a little, I don't want to say slower but she was slower and moved the ball a little better. She had a great change, very smart. They are both outstanding."

Becker and Peterson's paths crossed during Peterson's senior year in 2001 when Becker - then a fourth-grader - came to the West Aurora camp.

"She was already about as tall as I am. We knew she was going to be good," said Ormond, before uttering the "I" word again. "That tall, being left-handed, she was pretty intimidating."

Opposing DVC schools certainly won't be sad to see her move on to Mississippi State.

"She's very good," Naperville Central coach Andy Nussbaum said. "She especially I think gets better as the game goes on. She gets stronger as the game goes on."

Becker agreed with that scouting report.

"I think it's important to learn from what you have done at the beginning and find what has worked for you, and also learn from the batters," Becker said. "Everyone has tendencies in what they do and you learn from their previous at-bats. Neal Ormond does a nice job of refreshing my memory of everything that goes on and what has worked in the past."

Not only have her numbers gone up during her career, Becker said she's learned to be a better pitcher. While the 6-foot-3 left-hander had success from Day 1, she's also honed her craft each year.

"I'm a lot better in my pitch selection now and my sequences," Becker said. "My pitches have changed. My pitching coach has helped me a lot, taught me a lot about softball. As you get older the mental game changes a lot, the way you think about the pitches and the batters, it's really different. When you are a freshman you think about what you are doing at that second but as you get older you think about later on in the game and pitches ahead of time."

West Aurora coach Dave Zine has seen those improvements, and he knows Becker is going to need to continue making them to succeed next year in the SEC.

"She's developed from the thrower to a pitcher," Zine said. "She's made the adjustments along the way. It's going to be a huge challenge next year at Missisisspi Stae but I think she'll be up to the challenge. She works really hard, she'll have to improve her game even more to pitch at that level. She knows that. There's no doubt she'll be able to work at that and make the adjustments."

Becker chose Mississippi State over schools like Eastern Illinois, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State. She is going to major in biological science and wants to be a cosmetic dermatalogist.

Becker will continue the pipeline MSU coach Jay Miller, an Aurora native, has started that includeds Kaneland's Laurie Siebert and West Aurora's Lindsay Hunley.

"I heard all good things," Becker said. "The SEC is going to be top competition. It's going to be a challenge and I'm going to grow as a player. It's going to be a whole other level. You just have to step up everything you do. Your pitches are always going to have to be on.

"I'm excited to move on and go to MSU. Next year West is going to be doing good, they are getting a lot of experience with the younger girls now. I'm going to miss everyone. New stage, I'm just really excited to go somewhere warm."

After spending the last four years as teammates with Becker - playing the field behind her and not trying to hit her - Barnak is glad she'll be able to follow her friend's progress at college while remembering the days nobody wanted to get into the batter's box against her.

"I can go to her about anything, she's a great person, hard working, I'm going to be sad when she leaves," Barnak said. "I think she'll be good both in the classroom and on the field (at MSU). She's grown so much and got so much better."