WILTON—Annie McMahon doesn’t mind taking one for the team.
In fact, the Wilton High senior catcher is more than willing to make the 43-foot journey from behind the plate to the pitching rubber to show her battery-mate a bruise or two.
“I like showing them my bruises. It’s a reminder that ‘This is what I’ll do for you. Don’t worry about throwing the drop. I’ll block it,’” McMahon said, pointing out the obvious of how important a catcher is on any team.
It is that type of attitude that has carried McMahon through her career, so far, and will carry her into the rest of her days on the diamond, as well.
Earlier this fall, McMahon announced her commitment to play softball at the next level, continuing her career at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
“Annie is awesome. She’s definitely one of the nicest kids, but also one of the hardest workers,” Wilton coach Brian Jacobs said. “She’s the kind of kid; she makes an impact on a team in so many different ways. No matter what she brings on the field, it’s more about what she brings off the field. She’s one of the best catchers I’ve worked with.”
Most importantly, McMahon isn’t done working.
Soon after committing to Catholic, McMahon spent a weekend in Pennsylvania at a softball camp for catchers.
“You can always get better,” McMahon said. “I feel like when you stop pushing yourself, that’s not a good thing. You don’t ever want to stop pushing.”
McMahon knew she wanted softball to be a part of her next educational journey and she knew she wanted to get into the field of sports marketing.
She found a perfect future home in Catholic, a Division 3 program that gives her everything she wants for the next step.
“Well, the coach is awesome,” McMahon said of Catholic coach Sophie Maccarone. “She’s so nice. I remember meeting her for the first time and I could see me spending four years with her coaching me. I just thought she was awesome.”
McMahon also loves the fact that the school is in the Metro D.C., area which will give her access to a lot of professional sports teams.
“The location is perfect,” McMahon said. “I want to get into some sports marketing and there are so many professional sports teams down in that area.”
McMahon played a plethora of a sports growing up, but even in a lacrosse-mad town like Wilton she refused to give up her bat and ball for a lacrosse stick.
“I signed up at an early age and I fell in love with it,” she said. “You meet so many people and make so many connections.”
After starting in the Wilton Little League Softball ranks, McMahon journeyed her way through the travel ranks, playing for the CT Thunder, the CT Rams, the CT Jags, the CT Seahawks and, most recently, the Empire State Huskies.
“I don’t think it’s one program that helped me get to the next level,” McMahon said. “I think it was a combination of all them. One team I barely played for, but I learned from the coaches and learned some game-management stuff. One team needed more outfielders, so they turned me into an outfielder. I feel like everything I learned are now little pieces of me.”
Truth be told, when it comes to the next level, one program helped he more than the rest—Wilton High’s own program.
“I learned a lot, especially how to balance school and softball, which is something you don’t learn from your travel programs in the summer,” McMahon said. “I learned a lot from the Wilton softball community. They set me up for success.”
Jacobs said McMahon’s impact on Wilton High softball has been multi-faceted over the past three seasons.
“She just wants to do everything she can to help the team succeed,” Jacobs said. “One game, she’ll go out and belt a clutch home run on offense; next game, she will be getting a bunt down in a key spot or running bases. She’s not the fastest, but she’s one of our best base runners. She’s also got that work-ethic, and she’ll go out and do it 100 percent to help us be successful.”
The catcher’s spot also became her home quite literally at home in Wilton.
“It started when I was the only kid in Little League who could throw all the way to second base,” McMahon quipped. “But I love it. It’s great. You get to see things nobody else can see and your team has to kind of trust you with that. I really like knowing my teammates trust me.”
The person who must trust the catcher the most is also 43 feet away and McMahon admits to having grown to love the pitcher-catcher connection.
That’s something that isn’t always easy when the pitcher is struggling, and McMahon has to make the journey out to the circle to talk her teammate off the proverbial ledge.
“I’ve proven to be really good at distracting people,” she said. “I do a pretty good job walking out there, telling a joke. I really like that because you can calm a pitcher down. When they’re all in their head, I like knowing I can calm them down.”
As for the bruises she takes behind the plate? Just a fact of life for anybody who straps on the pads.
“I don’t think I ever wanted to accept the fact that I was signing up to get beat up,” McMahon said. “I guess maybe once I hit 12U I was like I might as well learn to enjoy this.”
Each and every bruise has become a story of sorts on the road map for her journey from the Wilton Little League to the Catholic University softball field.
As such, Jacobs knows the Cardinals will be getting a good team player who will keep putting the work in.
“It’s almost cliché, but she’s the kind of kid everybody would want on their roster,” Jacobs said. “She was really approaching (her college decision) the way you would want her to, and she was really doing her homework and seeing what would be a good fit.”
She has one more year at Wilton High before her college career begins.
That’s a lot more bruises to come for Annie McMahon.
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