TURNER – If you go to the softball page on Delta State University’s web page, you are greeted by a photo of University Field glowing under the lights in the Mississippi night.

As Sam St. Hilaire perused various colleges in the South, it a was picture that instantly caught her eye.

“The first thing you see on the website is the field,” said the Leavitt senior pitcher. “They have a really, really nice field, and I really liked that.”

The Division II school in Cleveland, Miss., had St. Hilaire’s attention. After contact with the coach, a visit to the school and a partial scholarship, St. Hilaire had found a new home – at least for the next few years.

“I wanted to kind of leave the region,” said St. Hilaire. “I kind of like the South. I didn’t want to go D-I. I didn’t want to play that much softball. I wanted to play D-II and have time in between softball to do the other things that I wanted to do. So we were looking in the South for Division II schools, and that was one of them.”

People are bit taken aback when they ask St. Hilaire about her future plans. Studying Business and playing college softball in Mississippi isn’t exactly the answer they expect.

After pitching Leavitt to back-to-back Class A state titles, St. Hilaire had pretty good credentials to shop with. Though she did draw interest from some Division I schools, she quickly decided that wasn’t for her.

“They sort of own you at Division I,” said St. Hilaire. “Some people want that, but I didn’t want that.”

Instead, she was looking for competitive Division II programs, preferably in warmer climates. So she and her father did some surfing on the internet and came across a variety of schools.

“I contacted a bunch of schools in the South,” said St. Hilaire, whose Southern exposure is based primarily on various elite teams she’s played for that competed in tournament in that region. “Half of them got back to me. I really like the coach at (Delta State). He’s a really, really nice guy. I just really like him and that attracted me to visit there.”

During February vacation, St. Hilaire visited five schools, two in the South and one in Minnesota. After visiting Delta State, she felt she had found what she was looking for.

She’s thrilled about the chance to play softball almost year-round and loves the fact that her college plans are already set and out of the way as the spring season begins.

“It was really stressful for me,” she said. “Once I made that decision, I felt so much better. I haven’t even doubted the decision once.”

Now she has her sights set on her final season with the Hornets. After losing all-stars Kristen Healy and Gretchen Conn, Leavitt has significant holes to fill, but still have the nucleus of last year’s club.

St. Hilaire played a significant part last year as one of the states top hurlers. She allowed six earned runs, had 211 strike outs and an 0.30 earned run average in 131 innings. She was also an offensive catalyst with a .491 batting average and .650 on base percentage.

“I’m just going to do the best that I can do,” said St. Hilaire. “The team is great. We have a lot of great players, but we lost two very key players. We have some young players coming up, and we have a good group of seniors. We always work hard and have fun. I think we’ll have a good season.”

After being a KVAC All-Star, the Sun Journal Player of the Year and winning back-to-back state titles, there aren’t a lot of things St. Hilaire hasn’t accomplished. Still, she’s focused on making her senior year one of her best. When it comes to eyeing a three-peat – something only three other teams (Traip, Madison and Jonesport-Beals) have achieved – St. Hilaire says she’s not even thinking that far ahead.

“I like to think of it as a brand new season,” said St. Hilaire. “I don’t even want to think about what happened in the past. I just want to think about this season.”