PORT CLINTON – During basketball season, Gabby Zuniga tried to conduct herself anonymously.
But as the softball season in its first week, Zuniga has been anything but anonymous.
The senior shortstop has sent balls out of the park in both of her team’s first two games and has a .500 batting average, going 4-for-8 at the plate with two home runs, a double and four RBIs.
Her early-season success has even taken her by surprise.
“It’s really not what I was expecting at all,” Zuniga said. “It’s a great feeling, actually.”
A season ago, Zuniga began the season near the top of the order but a prolonged slump saw her place in the lineup slip away.
“I went from being in the top of the order to dropping off the order completely,” Zuniga said. “(Success) feels really good. Really good.”
What’s behind the sudden power surge?
Zuniga spent countless hours getting in shape as she prepares to join the military following graduation.
“I’m not kidding you, I think I spent four months in the weight room every day, during the offseason, targeting every piece of my body,” Zuniga said. “I wasn’t expecting to be a home run hitter from it, but I’m going into the military so my goal was to bulk up and get ready for that, but it’s helping me other ways too.”
Zuniga said she plans to be a preventative medicine specialist for either the Army or Air Force.
“Either way, I’m going toward the services,” she said.
Zuniga didn’t spend all of her offseason in the weight room, however.
Basketball fans got a treat the second half of the basketball season when Zuniga took it upon herself to take up the Roscoe head and portray the Little Giant mascot at home games.
Working a game at the concession stand for her National Honor Society group, she spotted the costume. Before she knew it, she was dressed in jeans, a basketball jersey and the giant Roscoe head, dancing in the stands and on the stage, trying to district opposing free throw shooters.
“I put on the head one day and I had a blast with it,” she said. “It is a lot different being under the head and not in the student section.”
Zuniga wanted to keep her identity under the head a secret but that plan quickly fizzled.
“Everyone was like ‘Hey Gabby!’ Some people said they could tell by my hands and I’m like, ‘What?!’ So, I don’t know.”
While Zuniga worked hard to stay active and energized in the Roscoe costume, doing so came with hazards: Most notably a constant danger of the head falling off.
“There is a strap in there but I have a tiny head,” she said. “We have these head-warmers that we wear for these cold games and I’d put that on so it would stay on a little better but that made me sweat twice as much. It was a win-lose for me. I was out there dancing and sweating like a hog in there.”
Whatever the cost, Ross softball coach Tony Hill said he may make Roscoe duty a future offseason requirement based on Zuniga’s early-season success.
“We’re going to have to spread that around and make the other girls have to wear it.”