Alana Watts didn’t know when the day would come that she would break Chesapeake softball’s single season home run record. She hoped it would happen April 19 against Meade. Then April 22 against North County. But it wouldn’t come.
And then, the morning of April 24 before facing Arundel, Watts brushed her teeth “wrong.”
“It felt different,” she said. “And then, if you put on your cleats a certain way, it’s like, ‘Yeah. Today’s the day.’”
Watts stepped into the batter’s box at Arundel in the top of the third. Her Cougars already led 7-2. Three teammates loaded the bases and looked to her expectantly. They knew she was on the brink — everyone did. And they knew she’d hit it.
And from the moment the pitch rose from Anna Bristol’s hand, so did Watts. She can always tell if it’s hittable. But so far, the Wildcat limited her to high rise balls.
“She was gonna miss one. And this one, it was just straight down the middle,” Watts said of her 12th home run.
Watts, finally fully recovered from an ACL tear, was ready to break records in her senior season.
“I had to crush it,” Watts said. “
In March, every Anne Arundel softball coach named Watts a player to watch this spring. And not one of them knew for certain she’d play.
Chesapeake coach Brittany Owen didn’t either, a worry that gnawed her as the first spring flowers bloomed and the team rolled through all its scrimmages. She was without Watts as a player since March 14, 2023, shortly before a season that fell deeply beneath the program’s usually stratospheric expectations.
Then the one day before the first game, Watts simply handed Owen her clean bill of health, and said, “Here.”
“Just like that,” Owen said with a laugh.
Watts wanted to snap all the records she could as a junior and collect the rest as a senior if needed. But her ACL tear forced her to make a choice: Do it in one season, or don’t do it at all.
Watts picked the first choice. She fully intends to further her home run record, to preserve for as long as possible. She’s four RBI away from that single-season mark, too — 54, set by Olivia Ravadge in 2013.
“A lot of people have high expectations for me,” Watts said, “and I’m willing to meet them. The girl a year ago didn’t get this shot. But now, I can. Why wouldn’t I try?”
On that first day she was cleared to play, it was as if the sun darkened over Chesapeake’s field and a spotlight dropped onto her. Watts absorbed the attention every one of her teammates gave her and nervously looked around. All the gym workouts she’d done with her dad for a year, and this was the first time she stepped foot on dirt to practice.
Beforehand, her father said, “Have confidence in yourself. You’re going to do it.”
“And then I hit a ground ball, and thought, ‘Alright.’ I started running around and it felt good. And then, for a couple seconds, I felt pain,” Watts said. “But I got up, and it was OK.”
But that was practice. Watts boarded the bus to Glen Burnie on Monday, March 25. Owen inked her third in the batting order. And Watts felt the eyes again.
She looked to her coach for a sign. Owen fidgeted her hands: “Breathe.” She did.
“A lot of people are watching me, but this is what I do,” Watts said. “It’s OK if I mess up right now.”
She took to the batter’s box for her return at-bat — and got hit by the pitch.Her next at-bat, though, Watts homered over the center field wall. She still gets the “childlike jitters” when that happens.
It happened a lot.
That weekend, she pelted two home runs against Reservoir. She hit another that day against Frederick. In the second week of April, she hit one home run against Old Mill, then four in two games against Annapolis. She tied the school record against Southern on April 17.
Her power is far from Chesapeake’s only asset. The 14-3 Cougars steamrolled over most of the county. And her hitting is far from Watts’ only asset, too. Moments after cracking her record-breaker, Watts came in to pump the awaiting Cougars batters with hype. She turned to her coach and scolded her for littering — the leader of the school environmental club leads her teammates to pick up trash every Friday.
“She’s a teammate that every team would want,” Owen said. “She became more aware of what this team could be, and what they could do.
But within, bundled up with the smiles, cheer and joy was a darker memory: fear of her own body. Following her injury, Watts struggled to physically get out of bed. She couldn’t stand long enough to cook or to bathe herself.
But as soon as she could, Watts worked out every day. She started bench-and-leg-pressing 20 pounds with her dad. The second she could stand long enough to swing, Watts — still in a bulky brace — took cuts off a tee. She booked physical therapy three times a week.
The knee healed, but not perfectly. Watts knows she’s slower now. She altered her stance to open her front side, and liked it better.
“She worked her butt off, kept her head up and kept hope,” Owen said. “She pushed herself through. She’s one of the best players in the county, and losing that year sucked, but she’s here now showing everyone what she’s made of.”
None of that compared to the training Watts needed to do on her mind.
In 2023, Owen entrusted Watts as a pseudo-coach. She cheered and gave advice. Inside, she died every day. Everyone told her she’d never be the same when she returned. She waited years for her junior season, to impress colleges, but there she was, sitting on the bucket. Her friends’ commitments rolled in. Watts smiled to them. To her mom, she cried. She wasn’t mad at them, she said; she truly felt happy. But she’d “taken a backseat to her own life.”
“I had places looking at me I wanted to attend. And that all went away,” Watts said. “And everybody’s like, ‘It’s OK, ‘Lan!’ But they didn’t know, because they were able to go out there and play. And I sat back and watched.
“I lost something of me I couldn’t get back at the time. And you can’t explain that.”
Her leg still pounds sometimes when she’s up to bat, but she hits. Her mind tries to block her from diving for balls, but she still dives. That eases, too.
On Wednesday, teammate Rylee Hyde’s foul ball shot just a few inches from Watts’ leg, and she didn’t so much as flinch.
“But when you realize this is something you want to do every day, you start to believe you got it,” Watts said.Her former self wouldn’t have been able to do all that Watts is accomplishing, healthy or not — Watts knows that now. There’d been a time when she considered quitting softball. When she stepped away, she rekindled true love.
“I could get hurt again today, or the next time, and I’m gonna play like it’s my last game ever,” Watts said. “My goals are what they are now, and I look them straight in the face. That girl a year ago, she didn’t have the fire she has now.”
