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Her full name is Samantha Michelle Brisbin, but nearly everyone knows her as Sammie.
“This year I've kind of been steering away from that name,” Brisbin said. “On my (school) papers I don't write Sammie as much. I'd rather be called Samantha, but most of my friends just call me Sam.”
Brisbin, 18, will graduate from Northwood High School in June having earned 11 varsity letters – four in basketball, four in softball and three in volleyball. Although it's not uncommon for an athlete at smaller schools to pile up varsity letters, that doesn't make it any less impressive.
Brisbin not only has excelled in three sports for the Rangers, she's also maintained a 3.33 GPA and earned respect and admiration from her coaches, teammates and opponents.
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“I can handle the stress of school and sports,” Brisbin said. “I like to multi-task, and I'm able to keep my stress down with sports at the time and focus on my work. But when it's game time, it's game time.”
Northwood softball coach Dan Fuller inserted Brisbin into the starting lineup at third base midway through her freshman year, and she's started at that position ever since. Brisbin was named first-team All-Toledo Area Athletic Conference as a sophomore and junior.
“Sammie is very coachable,” Fuller said. “We've struggled the last couple years, but she's been a solid plus. She's got a very good glove, a very strong arm and she runs the bases well. You don't get too many good players like her. She's been very, very consistent.
“This year she's our only senior and we have a very good junior class. She's been the leader. She gets out there and leads at practice and keeps everybody under control. She knows what needs to be done and she encourages others to do that. She's just a dream ballplayer, she really is. In my 15 years, she's one of the better ballplayers we've had in that time.”
Brisbin, who bats third in the lineup, batted .381 last season with 18 runs, 21 RBI and nine stolen bases. She also hit over .380 as a sophomore.
“She's been a very consistent hitter,” Fuller said of his senior captain. “She's a singles hitter and she can drive the ball a little bit, and she can bunt the ball. She can basically do it all.”
If she had to pick one sport to focus on, Brisbin said it would be softball.
“I think my favorite sport definitely is softball,” she said. “I feel like I have more leadership there and people look up to me more. I don't feel as intimidated. In volleyball and basketball, the seniors and juniors at the time were really outspoken. I didn't really start opening up as much until my junior year. I feel like I'm better at softball than the other sports.”
Northwood girls basketball coach Geoff Milewski has first-hand knowledge of what Brisbin, who played the shooting guard position, has meant to the Rangers' basketball program.
Although Brisbin, an Alan Miller Jewelers All-Press honorable mention selection, averaged a modest 6.2 points a game this past season, a career-high, and 1.8 rebounds, Milewski said Brisbin meant much more to the team that just filling up a stat sheet.
“Sammie is the type of player who makes her team better,” the coach said. “She's not about padding her stats. She takes shots that she knows she can make, and she passes the ball if a teammate has a better shot. All she cares about is the team being successful. She was the heart and soul of this year's team. She is mature beyond her years and has the demeanor to be a very good coach some day.
“In our closest games during the second half of the season, I assigned Sammie to guard players who wound up receiving much more league recognition than her. In each of those games, Sammie outperformed her opponent individually and helped us win the games that gave us third place outright in the league.”
Brisbin said the best sports memory she has of her high school career occurred this winter in basketball when the Rangers, who were picked to finish fifth in the TAAC, finished two spots higher at the end of the season.
“We ended up getting third all to ourselves,” she said. “That's a really good accomplishment we achieved. It feels good to be a part of that.”
Brisbin, who played the libero position for Coach John Stover's volleyball team the past two seasons, intends to do everything she can to make sure Northwood's softball team plays to its potential this spring.
“My goal is to be better than we were last year,” she said. “Now that I'm the only senior playing softball this year, I'm really looking forward to pushing the girls to work harder than last year. We can be a good team if we try for it. I want to see if we can get a winning season, and I have faith in our team. I really enjoyed having a team that's like your family for three months in a row. That's what's going to be hard after high school, when that part's over.”
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