CHICO — Prior to the start of Eastern Athletic League play, the Pleasant Valley softball seemed to be underachieving with just a 5-6 record. Since the start of EAL play, the Vikings have come together as a team and have gone 3-0 in league play with seven EAL and six non-league games remaining.
Players have come together and set differences apart, but on the field a large part of the Vikings’ recent success has been led by senior utility player Serina Vue. Vue leads PV in nearly ever offensive category, including batting average (.517), hits (20), runs scored (17), RBIs (22), doubles (5), triples (2) and home runs (5). Vue recently homered over the center field fence against Chico High on April 5 at PV, homered once more April 7 in Red Bluff, tripled in the Roseville tournament against Woodcreek and homered once more Saturday against Vista del Lago.
Due to Vue’s recent success she has been named this week’s Chico Enterprise-Record Prep Athlete of the Week.
Vue has had success at the plate, but she has also been key on defense for PV as a super-utility player. As a freshman she started at second base after growing up as a pitcher and catcher until eight grade. Her senior year she sees regular time at third base and other positions around the infield and outfield for the Vikings, and has even seen time in the circle at pitcher for a very thin PV pitching staff.
“Serina has been a pleasure to coach,” said Pleasant Valley coach Tony Tallerico, who has coached Vue all four years. “I have asked her to play a lot of different positions to help make us a better team. She loves catching, but for the Viking program she hasn’t played her favorite position nearly as much as either of us have envisioned.”
Despite her success, Vue enjoys seeing the success of her teammates and says she is the loudest one in the dugout on her team at PV as well as her travel-ball team All-American Mizuno Gold – Jackson based out of Sacramento.
Vue is a four year varsity player for PV and has grown close with the Tallerico. Tallerico said Vue’s first day of tryouts her freshman year, “it was apparent she had the skill level to come up to the varsity level and be a game changer.”
Vue’s freshman season, then-senior Sydney Minter, a vocal leader for the Vikings, was getting ready to graduate. Tallerico told Vue that she needed to, “Become the new Sydney. Be the one that constantly tries to bring everyone up, be the positive and be the energy people need when not everyone has it.”
Vue took that message to heart and she tries hard to implement these words to her teammates as one of five seniors on PV’s roster this season.
“I just don’t stop talking because I just want the positive aspect for everyone and for them to know that it’s OK not to play,” Vue said. “To be a teammate and cheer everyone else on their successes as well is OK. It’s not just a single person sport. We all can’t have what we desire all the time, so we have to root for other people as well.”
One of the biggest things Tallerico has taught her is that life is more than softball, which as a 14-year-old high school athlete was something hard to grasp four years ago. She often entered with the mindset to not strike out, but in her four years has grown into a confident mindset and knows she’s a threat at the plate.
“The pitcher has to beat me and that’s hard,” Vue said.
One of the biggest changes in her mindset came during the COVID break that limited teams to high school teams in the North State to two shortened seasons. While some took that time to extend their games leaps and bounds, for Vue it was one of the most challenging times mentally she has ever encountered.
She was playing with a travel ball team in Sacramento and struggled to get out of bed to go to practice each day. She said nothing made her happy anymore. Vue said the struggles in getting out of bed lasted for nearly two years and she even quit the game for a year.
Despite the break, Vue knew she would return to high school softball for her senior season. She said in part that was due to Tallerico.
“My heart wasn’t fully there but a part of me still loved softball,” Vue said.
Vue eventually returned and joined a new travel ball team in Sacramento, led by 1992 USA Olympic gold medalist Kelly Jackson of All-American Softball School in West Sacramento.
It was there she learned her new approach at the plate.
“I used to go up to bat and say, ‘do anything but strike out and you’re fine,'” Vue said. “Now I go up not in a cocky aspect, but in a confident aspect. I now have developed the confidence that I am a threat when it comes to hitting and so basically it’s like just make contact because I’m a threat.”
Vue concluded by saying that she’s learned that softball’s not the world and can see a bigger picture now. Still, she hasn’t given up hope of playing at the collegiate level and is keeping her sights on a possible future on the diamond.
“Tally was one of the reasons that kept me here and what keeps me here too. Obviously I love softball more than anything now, if not even more so with a bigger perspective of everything,” Vue said. “It was more his environment he creates and pushing through. I think he’s very empathetic and he understands a lot and understands that people are struggling, but can overcome them a little when they come here. When you’re on this field it’s not your life, it’s softball. It’s better than life.”
