Gold standard at Duke, started with sitting and waiting – Saratogian

FILE: Duke’s Ana Gold (4) smiles after hitting a home run during an NCAA softball game on Friday, May 19, 2023, in Durham, N.C. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown)

DURHAM, N.C. — Recently, Duke University softball’s junior third-baseman Ana Gold set the program home run record with a three-run jack to left field- No. 36 of her career, in the Blue Devils’ thirty-fourth win of the season.

A 2021 graduate of Ballston Spa, Gold remembers when she realized hitting for power was for her, even though she may not have the first-ever home run ball that came with it.

“My dad [Eric] has been my hitting coach since I started playing baseball and then softball and since I was eight, or 10 years old, I’ve been doing specific drills to have the most efficient swing, with the best swing path, that can hopefully be – if I execute it – very consistent,” Gold said in an interview with the Saratogian. “I remember I hit my first homerun when I was like 11, I think, and I’ve just been hitting home runs since then.”

“I kind of knew [the Duke home run record] was there, but that kind of had been in the back of my mind,” Gold said of this season’s accomplishment. “I think that if I just play my game, good things will happen and if that’s God’s plan, then that’s God’s plan. I’m just gonna trust in him and whatever happens, happens. I really try not to think about that stuff. I just try to step on the field and be the best player I can be for my team to help us win and if that means hitting home runs, then that means hit home runs.”

Gold has seven long balls in the 2023-24 season. Across her career, spanning four varsity seasons with the Scotties and three more with the Blue Devils, she has more than 60. Her favorite part of each one? Putting the barrel to the ball.

“Feeling that and knowing that all the work you put in has paid off,” Gold said.

Yet long before the record-setting junior was launching balls over the fence, she was a seventh-grade first base coach on the Ballston Spa junior varsity team. The team’s head coach, Toby Youngblood, was a “firm believer in biding your time,” said varsity head coach Amanda Fifield, until one day, the time had come and Gold set the standard.

“Coach Toby pulled me aside one practice and was like, ‘You’re gonna start against Saratoga.’ So I got the start and then I ended up hitting two home runs in that game, and then just started every game since then,” Gold said. “So, that was kind of, I think, just a really good learning experience for me- just not settling for less and just always striving. During that time period, I worked my butt off. I never stopped grinding and the hard work just paid off. And so did believing in myself; that definitely helped.”

“It was in that moment, she said, because of that experience, she would go home and hit until her hands bled. She wanted to make a statement for herself and I remember her parents also talking about how without that experience, she might not be as hard of a worker as she is,” Fifield said. “It was that chance where- yes, she was probably the top player on the team, at that time, but our coach at that time Toby was like, nope, ‘you still gotta prove yourself.”

That following year, Fifield received a letter before varsity tryouts from the eighth-grader’s parents, Julie and Eric Gold, discussing why their daughter had what it took to compete at the varsity level. Fifield had already seen it for herself at each of the two tryouts and whatever proof still needed was delivered when Gold homered in her first varsity at-bat as an eighth grader, the head coach remembers. Fifield now looks at those letters of recommendation a bit differently.

“At that point in time, as a coach, I used the blanket statements: ‘It’s not a guarantee she’ll be on the team. We want to give her the opportunity to prove that she could be there.’ And sure enough, she was in there as the all-time homerun leader,” Fifield said.

“Every year she got bigger and stronger. As an eighth grader, she was smaller and then she started lifting and then she started growing and she just didn’t stop and I feel like during COVID, she just lifted, hit and did so much work on her own, that by her senior year, it was easy to see- ‘there’s no reason why she’s not playing at that big level.’ She had officially committed to Duke on Sept. 1 of her junior year,” Fifield noted.

“Just being able to play around those older players, more experienced players, I think that just pushed me a lot harder and just challenged me and made me a better player overall, but I’m really, very grateful for coach Fifield and coach Toby for giving me those opportunities and just believing in me at such a young age,” Gold said.

Across her next three seasons after watching from the first base coach’s box, Gold helped power her team to a pair of Sectional Championships, in 2018 and ‘19, and garnered back-to-back State Finals appearances.

Nowadays, she’s readying for her third appearance in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Tournament and a chance at a third-consecutive berth to the NCAA Super Regional. Having a decorated past in the postseason certainly lends a hand to Gold, in some aspects.

“I do remember them. It’s a little different now; a lot more fans,” Gold said with a laugh.

Her connection with the Scotties hasn’t been lost, beyond playoff memories, as Gold and Fifield shared they communicate frequently. Whether it’s’ postgame pats on the back, mental check-ins or even being in attendance for past regular-season and Tournament games, Fifield is making sure her former star still feels the love from states away.

“It’s more checking in, ‘hey, great series.’ I’ll touch base and just say, ‘congrats,’ on her breaking the home run records. I’ll ask her parents, like every now and then I’ll reach out…I’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m noticing this,’” Fifield said. “I don’t, at this point, do the coaching side of it with her. It’s more mental like, ‘Hey, remember to still love the game when you go out there and rake,’ and that’s something we always used to say. So, let the head be steady, mentally and physically, and just do your thing.”

“I would say it’s one of those things that knowing that the support is always there, that even once you’ve left, you’re still part of what we have here. Just personally, I feel like if I were to have known that that support was still there. It’s just a nice like peace of mind that you’re not forgotten and not just for her, but I do it for many of my other athletes who go on and play at different levels. I try to touch base with them because it’s just a family community that we have in Ballston Spa that we continue beyond.”

That street goes both ways, as when Gold returns to her old stomping grounds, she makes sure to give back to those who are where she used to be, climbing the ranks.

“The past couple of summers I’ve tried to make it to the Miss Scotties Summer Camp that they have with the younger players, just to try to inspire them and just showing that it is possible if that’s what their dream is,” Gold reflected. “Just them supporting me; like, I have so many little girls back home that love to watch me. It’s really cool.”

“So, a lot of what I see is- I have players that want to play at the next level and I’ll reference Ana, at times, but I also reference both Lauren and Ashlyn Kersch [Geneseo], being where they went, things they achieved while they were with us and be like, ‘listen, Ana got to where she was because she has a lot of athleticism, she worked hard, she played above her age group for many years,’ and I think I was quoted in The Daily Gazette once about, how some people are born with it and some people work for it. Ana was blessed with both. She’s in that like, top 1% when it comes to that; she’s athletic, but she works for it.”

As for the junior’s future beyond softball, Gold thinks she could continue to put her power-filled experience to good use.

“I’m gonna be majoring in psychology, but, I’m still not exactly sure what I want to do, career-wise,” Gold said. “I give a lot of lessons back home, which I’ve loved doing, so maybe, coaching might be something in my future. But, I’m not really sure yet.”