Power outage behind her, Sydney Stewart sparkles for Arizona softball | Michael Lev

Colin and Sara Stewart were watching their daughter hit during the 2025 Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton, California. Arizona won all five games — and Sydney, the Wildcats’ new starting catcher, hit safely in all five, going 7 for 17 with a pair of home runs.

At one point Colin turned to his wife and said, “There she is.”

Sydney Stewart’s confidence was back. Her power was back. She was herself again.

Where had that version of her gone? How did she recapture it?

Over the course of a critical offseason, Stewart reshaped her approach at the plate and, in the process, rediscovered her swagger. She became a first-team All-Big 12 performer and a second-team All-American.

Then she one-upped herself.

In conference regular-season play this year, Stewart led the league in batting average (.490), on-base percentage (.655), slugging percentage (1.314), OPS (1.969), home runs (13), RBIs (40) and walks drawn (27). The senior was named the Big 12 Player of the Year.

“I didn't want to stop shooting for the stars,” said Stewart, who’ll be the focal point of Marshall’s pitching staff when the Wildcats face the Thundering Herd in Game 2 of the NCAA Tournament’s Durham Regional on Friday.

“I talked to Amber (Freeman, Arizona’s hitting instructor), talked to our coaches and just set out my goals for this year. Just went to work ... knowing that the sky's the limit, and I'm just really happy that hard work has paid off.”

Stewart speaking something into existence isn’t new. When she was 12 years old, she saw Washington playing in the Women’s College World Series and told her parents she would play for the Huskies someday. (She did it.) Her goals for 2025 included becoming an All-American. (She did it.) Her goals for '26 included becoming the Big 12 Player of the Year. (She did that, too.)

“One thing about Sydney, when she puts her mind to something, she goes after it and gets it done,” her father said. “She’s a very determined young woman.”

She’s been that way since she was 3 years old.

‘Untapped talent’

The Stewarts are a ball-playing family. Colin played professional baseball, spending two seasons in the Atlanta Braves organization. He met Sara at Sonoma State, where both were outfielders — he in baseball, she in softball.

Kaylin, the eldest of their three children, played softball through high school. Sydney followed in their cleat prints — eventually, anyway.

As she watched her sister play rec-league ball, Sydney desperately wanted to join her. The problem was, Kaylin was 8 and Sydney had yet to turn 4. She wasn’t old enough.

“I wanted to be on the team, and they're like, ‘No, you're too young,’ ” Sydney Stewart said. “They just got me a jersey. I thought I was on the team, but really, I just had a jersey.”

Being the team’s bat girl or unofficial mascot wasn’t enough. Stewart still wanted to play the following year. She still wasn’t old enough. So her mom joined the rec league’s board and pushed for a rule change — a lowering of the minimum age. Welcome to the team, Sydney.

Stewart would “play up” for most of her youth. She played on 12U teams as a 10-year-old, on 14U teams as a 12-year-old

“I was 14 playing 18s at one point,” Stewart said. “It was challenging, but I think it definitely helped push me and forced me to level up.”

Her dad recognized her potential when, at age 10, she hit a pair of bombs off older pitchers in a playoff game. In her final two seasons at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California, Stewart batted .558 with 27 home runs in 147 at-bats.

In her first two seasons at Washington, Stewart performed well. She became the Huskies’ starting catcher and improved her batting average from .261 as a freshman to .321 as a sophomore.

But the power she had displayed in high school only showed up occasionally. Stewart hit seven home runs in 200 at-bats in 2023 and '24.

Those who knew her and watched her — and Stewart herself — felt she had more to give.

“I knew that I had untapped talent,” Stewart said.

Caitlin Lowe saw it first-hand.

The UA pitching staff couldn’t get Stewart out in a March 16, 2024, game at Hillenbrand Stadium. She went 4 for 4 with two doubles, a home run and four RBIs.

So when Stewart entered the transfer portal later that spring, pursuing her was a “no-brainer,” Lowe said. She firmly believed that she and her staff could help Stewart tap into her talent.

“We knew she had the strength,” Lowe said. “We just thought there was more in there.”

The adjustment

Arizona announced the signing of Stewart on June 28, 2024. The school announced the hiring of Amber Freeman on Aug. 13.

The pair would form a potent partnership.

Freeman was a three-time All-American catcher at Arizona State who earned Pac-12 Player of the Year honors in 2013. She found a kindred spirit in Stewart.

“We call each other long-lost sisters,” Freeman said.

Stewart arrived in Tucson with a determination to succeed and a willingness to take hard coaching. Freeman met with every player she inherited and formulated individualized plans based partly on “motor preferences” — i.e., the natural way an athlete moves.

Stewart possessed an uncommon physical trait for a catcher — she was tall. She’s listed at 6-foot-1.

Instead of trying to counteract her height while batting, Freeman suggested that Stewart use it to her advantage.

“As a tall person, she was always taught that she needed to be really low in her legs,” Freeman said. “I realized that she needed to stand up as tall and as loose as possible. If you notice, she stands there really relaxed. She bends her knees a little bit.

“Once she started hitting that way, she's like, ‘Man, I'm so comfortable.’ And I'm like, ‘Well, great, that's half the battle, right?’”

Said Stewart: “Hitting is all about knowing your body, knowing how it moves and knowing that it's not a carbon copy of the person next to you. Previously, things weren't clicking for me. I tried different things. ... I tried getting a little bit lower.

“But ... sometimes you overdo it because you don't have that gauge. So instead of getting lower, it's just a mindset thing of activating my legs. That's why I hit my leg all the time when I'm in the box. I'm trying to activate my legs rather than ... force myself into a position that's not natural to me.”

Getting her hacks in

In addition to altering her batting stance, Stewart put in extra time. She met with Freeman — aka “Coach Ber” — in her office to watch film. Stewart took countless cuts off the program’s eHack pitching machine, which can be programmed to simulate the velocities and spins of the best pitchers in the country.

“It's not meant to be warm and fuzzy,” Lowe said. “You're gonna fail a lot before you start succeeding. She's someone that would have taken a little bit of failure (previously) and gotten down by it. Now it's just like, buy in and dive into that feeling.

“It's uncomfortable. But at the other end of uncomfortable is something great — and growth.”

Stewart smacked 20 home runs and hit .374 last season. Heading into the Durham Regional, she has matched her home run total in 32 fewer at-bats while hiking her average to .415.

Her confidence has swelled. She’s more aggressive — yet also patient enough to wait for the one pitch she might get to hit per at-bat as wary foes give her the “Barry Bonds treatment.”

Although she’s the player every opposing coach circles on the lineup card, Stewart has learned not to put undue pressure on herself.

“When I was an underclassman, the high-pressure moments — bases loaded, two outs — I would get anxiety, I would get nervous,” Stewart said. “The mindset with ‘Ber’ was just honing in on the you-have-to-pitch-to-me mindset and knowing that I have the tools. ...

“I had glimpses of that (at Washington). When I got to Arizona, it was really turning the page and putting that into action.

“We did our eHack. ... I was on that thing night and day with (Freeman). It was just seeing production within practice and intra-squads. And it wasn't taking practice (with) a grain of salt. It was actually, ‘I'm intentionally working on a certain thing because I want this result.’ ”

That doesn’t mean Stewart gets results every time. Softball, like baseball, is a “game of failure” for someone in every at-bat.

Stewart faced the exact situation she described — bases loaded, two outs — in the bottom of the seventh inning of the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals on May 7. Arizona trailed Arizona State 2-1. Stewart made good contact on an 0-2 pitch, but her line drive was snared by ASU right fielder Ashleigh Mejia.

“It's obviously hard because it's such a big moment, but you have to make it smaller,” Stewart said. “You have to kind of dumb it down a little bit, because at the end of the day, you're facing another team full of talent. Kenzie Brown's an amazing pitcher; she's gonna be my teammate (with Portland of the AUSL).

“But I wanted that moment. I wanted that bases-loaded situation. ... You have to understand that sometimes you’re gonna put your best swing on it, and the result might not be what you wanted.”

Remember what Stewart’s dad said, though: When she puts her mind to something, she goes after it and gets it done.

Would you bet against her next time?