After providing a lift to Odessa-Montour softball and becoming the most decorated player in Corning Community College history, Grace Vondracek made an impressive jump to Division II at Caldwell University in New Jersey.
Her final batting average of .493 ranks second nationally and her .576 on-base percentage puts her in the top five. The junior second baseman was named first-team All-East Region by both the National Fastpitch Coaches Association and National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
Vondracek, 22, was named NJCAA Division III Softball Player of the Year in 2022 and 2023 and was a three-time All-American for the Red Barons. She went 13-for-15 in last year's World Series, which saw Corning lose out on the title when North Dakota State College of Science scored six runs in the seventh.
The academically driven Odessa native plans to get her master's in forensics.
Q: One hit shy of batting .500. Any that got away?
A: Definitely. You see the memes going around of 'MLB: The Show' where you get a perfect-perfect where you hit the ball on the perfect spot on the bat at the perfect time. It feels like sometimes I did that, but it just happened to be right at somebody. That was the story with a lot of my teammates and I. You hit the ball so hard, so well, but it’s right at somebody. That’s absolutely the worst. It’s super frustrating, but it’s a part of the game.
Q: How much pride did you take in how you played?
A: A lot. I’m very hard on myself, but with that comes the success I’ve had. Me being hard on myself and trying to pick out what I’m doing wrong and telling myself I need to do this instead of this. I’m proud of myself and talked to coach Lindsay (Mayer). We just had our exit meeting and she asked how I thought we did individually and team-wise. I said I wish I could have done better even though we did have the success we had. You always want to do better and sometimes there were times I was 0-for on the day or had one or two errors or kept missing balls. It’s just frustrating, it’s definitely mentally draining too.
Q: Where does your competitive nature come from?
A: I’m the baby in the family. I grew up with two older half-brothers who are about 12 and 14 or 15 years older than me. I saw my brother Alex growing up and he was super competitive and played soccer in high school and at Keuka College. I wanted to strive to be like him on the soccer field or on the field in general.
My two cousins (football players Zack Thuesen and JT Thuesen) just won a national championship at Cortland. They’re around my age and growing up we were always so competitive with each other, whether video games or riding our bikes. Me being the baby and only girl, I did not like to lose. I think that definitely sparked the competitiveness with not only myself but helping my teammates against other teams.
Q: Did you feel you had to prove yourself coming from a small school?
A: 100 percent. You come into a school where it’s not like Horseheads or it’s not like Elmira and all these girls are playing travel ball and playing year-round. You come from a school where girls are like, ‘Oh, softball, I want to try it.’ They go to Walmart or Dick’s and get the cheapest glove they can find and want to try it out and learn how to throw and hit. I was the only one there who knew the game and played year-round and had played since I was four years old.
Coming from there, I think a lot of people stereotyped me. I know (CCC coach Stacy Johnson) and coach Al Falkowski, they would make jokes of me being from Odessa and a small school and small area. It’s definitely something I had to prove that I deserved to be where I’m at. I’ve had to prove myself in order to get the recognition I think I deserved even though I think I got a lot of recognition at Odessa just because of being somebody who elevated the game at Odessa. They never won a game in over 10 years until I joined.
Q: What have the accolades meant to you?
A: They mean everything to me. If you told me when I was 11 years old just starting my travel ball career that I would win Player of the Year and have the success I had at Corning and Caldwell, I would have said you were lying to me and getting my hopes up. Not only is it because of the work I’ve put in, but it’s also because of the coaches who have helped me and who have believed in me.
I take great pride in those accolades and I’m literally staring here at those plaques up on my wall and trophies I got from Corning. I like to put those on display and my parents had the trophies in our living room for everybody to see when they came over just because that’s who they are and that’s how proud they are of me from almost basically coming from nothing and making something of myself.
Q: What did you learn from Coach Johnson?
A: I’ve taken a lot from Stacy. Not only how to be a team player but to be a captain and how to be someone the younger girls, or even girls who are older or your age, can look up to. You don’t know who you’re influencing on and off the field. I’ve definitely taken to being a leader, just like how my cousins are. They’re who I look up to to be who I am and I couldn’t be prouder to be their little cousin.
Q: Takeaways from coming so close to the title at CCC?
A: You definitely gain a lot of perseverance from those moments. I met with Stacy before I left for Caldwell in the fall and we were still talking about it. At this point it’s late July, almost August and she’s like ‘You know, I’ve accepted that we didn’t win. Granted, it’s so heartbreaking and I think about it almost every day of how we should have won.’ She said it just wasn’t meant to be. That’s exactly how you have to look at it, with everything we accomplished it just wasn’t meant to be. I think from that you gain a lot of perseverance. Even though I had anger and I was so upset you have to let it go because it’s in the past.
Follow Andrew Legare on Twitter: @SGAndrewLegare. You can also reach him at alegare@gannett.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today
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