Staff file photo / Neel Madhavan. Poland senior Mary Brant fist bumps Bulldogs head coach Jim Serich after hitting a home run during a playoff game last season.

POLAND — When Poland softball head coach Jim Serich speaks about Mary Brant, it appears a smile or laugh is never too far. But it is not necessarily because a funny anecdote is coming; at times, Serich is just in awe of how absurd Brant’s ability is.

“What did Mary hit?” Serich asked himself as he searched for Brant’s 2023 stats. “It was insane. She hit .570.”

It was actually .573 and it was by far the highest batting average of any player on the Poland softball team. Brant led the Bulldogs in nearly every statistical category and back to the district championship game, tallying 10 home runs, 39 RBIs and 32 runs in her junior season.

Defying expectations has become a theme for Brant, who made her impact known right away as a freshman at Poland by immediately cementing herself as the team’s shortstop, where she has remained since.

“Mary just came in, and she just played short,” Serich said. “She was just that rangy and just that good of an athlete.”

Since then, Brant has become one of the area’s best players in not just softball, but also soccer and basketball.

On the pitch, Brant earned second-team all-state honors in 2022 and was a two-time all-district and three-time all-conference selection. In basketball, Brant won this past season’s Northeast 8 Player of the Year award and earned a second-team all-district selection in 2023 and multiple all-conference honors throughout her high school career.

But the softball diamond is where Brant’s future lies. Brant is set to play softball at Robert Morris University, to which she committed in September. And that is why the past several months have been much more difficult than Brant expected.

During the soccer season, Brant leaped up and landed on one of her teammates. While most incidents like this result in a sprained or broken ankle or no serious injury at all, Brant wasn’t so lucky. Instead, she sustained a tibial tendon tear in her right foot.

Brant tried to play through the injury and did so for a little bit. She finished her final soccer season and proved to be highly effective in basketball, but the pain eventually became too much to bear.

“During games, it was kind of like a seven or eight pain level, and I kind of figured that was too much for me,” Brant said.

Prioritizing her future, Brant opted to end her basketball season and start the arduous recovery process.

“It was definitely hard, especially at first telling my teammates and my coaches for basketball that I was done playing because we all just love playing together. It was a big hardship for me to overcome,” Brant said. “If I would have kept playing basketball, I think it would have hurt me for a lot longer than it will now.”

Understanding Brant’s athletic aspirations, her doctors bypassed surgery, which would have sidelined her for 12 to 18 months, certainly ending her high school softball career and potentially keeping her out of her first season at Robert Morris.

Instead, Brant spent about a month and a half in a cast and walking boot as she recovered. Since getting out of the boot, Brant has slowly progressed with the goal of returning for her final softball season at Poland.

“The thing about this injury is it’s kind of just based off of me. So I’ve slowly gotten back into hitting a little bit, throwing. Within the next few days, I’m going to try to start fielding because I’m working on lateral movement,” Brant said. “Even now, it’s still frustrating when I can’t do certain things at (physical therapy) or certain things aren’t to the level that they were, but I’m just trying to work through it every day, and I have a great support system helping me out.”

When she makes her senior season debut, Brant will be wearing a brace to maintain stability and try to eliminate any pain.

“I think it’s kind of just testing the waters and then if it’s too much, backing out,” Brant said. “I can’t reach a certain end goal. … But as long as it’s good enough to be stable and will support me and it’s not hurting anymore, which is the most important thing, then I should be good to go.”

Serich is eager to get his superstar shortstop back, even joking that he asked Brant if he could slip her into the lineup during their preseason scrimmages, but he said he is prepared to wait as long as Brant needs.

“She’s gonna let us know when she’s ready. She’s got a full scholarship to go to Robert Morris to play. I’m not going to push her and I’m not going to say anything,” Serich said. “Whether it’s next week or the week after or three weeks from now, or five days from now, I don’t know. But she knows. She’ll know when she’s ready.”

When Brant is able to play, Serich said that while he would like to place her at short, he has considered moving Brant to third base, which would limit the lateral movement required of her, or making her a designated hitter to completely keep her off the field and only utilize her excellent hitting.

In its first game of the season Monday, Poland crushed Niles on the road 16-1. The Bulldogs will play their home opener Thursday in a rematch against Niles.

Have an interesting story? Contact Preston Byers by email at pbyers@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @PresByers.