VALTIE, NY ( NEWS10 ) — As we get set to gear up for the beginning of fall sports, our summer segment “What’s Next?” has reached it’s end. We’ve featured some of the best athletes the Capital Region has to offer, diving into what lies ahead for them, while looking back on their storied high school careers. We wrap it up with someone who was a part of one of the most dominant program’s we’ve seen in this area, Ichabod Crane softball’s Ava Heffner.
Get the latest news, weather, sports and entertainment delivered right to your inbox! “When we step on this field, you definitely feel that tension of you need outwork the player in front of you, whether it’s just hitting or fielding or pitching,” said Heffner. “Everybody is hungry and they’re all here for the same purpose.”
Winners of six straight section titles, the Ichabod Crane softball team can be described in one word: dynasty. An integral piece of that dynasty over the last three years has been Ava Heffner.
Heffner helped lead the Riders to a state title in 2022 as a sophomore, a season in which the Riders went 25-0, outscoring their opponents 407-13. “That team was an incredible team,” said Heffner. “I think it could have been a great travel team and I think we would have gone very far with that team as a travel team. To be a part of that as a just a sophomore who just started her first year starting, knowing I had to put on my best show so that my team didn’t fall down. It was crazy.”
“When we got out there, we weren’t just going to beat everybody, we were going to beat you by 12 every single game,” said head coach Tracy Nytransky McComb. “It happened that way, which I wouldn’t have said at the beginning of the season. That was one of the things we kind of rolled with and Ava was a huge part of that. She hit a ton of home runs for us. I believe she’s our home run leader, career-wise.”
The Riders weren’t satisfied. After putting the state on notice in 2022, Heffner helped lead the Riders to back to back state titles in 2023. While it wasn’t in the same dominating fashion, it was just as satisfying. “We had a target on our back the entire season,” said Heffner. “Everybody wanted to beat us. Everybody wanted to see us lose and we had to come together even more than the year before. We had to build. We had to learn. We had to learn how some people run, how some people don’t, how they all correspond on the field.”
The Riders made it back to the state title game this past season, falling to Marlboro Central. While it wasn’t the end result they were looking for, three straight title trips is nothing to sneeze at, and Heffner got to put another scale on full display: her leadership. “The seniors this year, especially with Ava, she’s kind of like the mother hen a little bit,” said Nytransky McComb. “She’s kind of bringing kids under her wing. Some girls were struggling a little bit and they weren’t hitting that well, she’d be the first one to take them out after practice or before practice.”
As the home run queen of Ichabod Crane, power is one of Heffner’s main tools, a tool she put on full display at the 518 Futures Classic, winning the Home Run Derby. “That was not even close,” said Nytransky McComb. “She was just jacking them easy. Everybody was going nuts. It was just a cool experience, I think, for her and everybody else there.”
That power was one of the things that wowed the coaching staff at Central Connecticut State. “She came down to a clinic we had, I believe it was back in January, and basically just showed out and and did really well and showed that she could play at this level,” said CCSU assistant coach Pat Holden. “She’s stronger than most and I think that’s going to be her biggest powerplay.”
Heffner committed to CCSU, where she’s heading in the fall, joining former Rider Claire Knapp, achieving a lifelong dream of playing at the Division-I level. “It’s crazy,” said Heffner. “I’ve always dreamed of it since I was a little girl. I worked my butt off. I’m going to continue to work my butt off, and I’m hoping that at the end of the day, it all pays off and I get to play like I did here., there.”
Heffner has won championships and earned an opportunity to play at the next level, but that’s not what she relishes the most about the game. “It’s meant everything,” said Heffner. “It brought friendships. It brought leaders, teachers, coach Nytransky. She’s our gym teacher, but she was also a friend. She cared. She loved you like her own. Throughout the years, she really helped me become the player I am, as well as my parents and my family through all the support that they’ve give. The friendships last forever. I played softball with some of the girls that I graduated with since we were little and developing over the years together has been probably the best thing that’s happened to us, all four of us.”
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