Jayla Jamison may be quiet, but her bat has been noisy for the Millville softball team

Jayla Jamison has struck out just one time in 18 games this season.

It was a called third strike.

And Jamison’s coach, Brooke Ewan-Dixon, still remembers the pitch.

“It was so low and outside that I told her I would have been upset if she swung at it,” Ewan-Dixon said.

In her second full season with the Millville softball team, after transferring from Wildwood Catholic, Jamison has been in the zone the entire season for the 16-2 Thunderbolts.

She is batting .622 with 28 hits and 13 stolen bases.

As a shortstop, Ewan-Dixon calls Jamison “lights out.”

“She literally is one of the best shortstops that has ever played for me,” Ewan-Dixon said.

Millville has had different stars emerge all season. The team has won big games and made big comebacks. On Thursday, Millville knocked off Egg Harbor Township on a walk-off hit by freshman Emily Felice after trailing 8-2.

For her part, Jamison has been a rock for the Thunderbolts.

Soft-spoken by nature, she leads Millville with her ultra-consistent play and demeanor. It’s one of the reasons Ewan-Dixon said the team is playing such confident softball heading into the playoffs.

“She knows the game. She’s played it a long time at a high level, and she’s someone we can count on,” Ewan-Dixon said. “She’s just so consistent.”

Great hitting runs in Jamison’s family.

She wears the No. 99 because it’s the number her sister, Arielle Bruno, wore. Bruno was the all-time hits leader at Sacred Heart before a stellar career at Central Connecticut.

Both Bruno and Jamison learned hitting from their grandfather, Dennis Bruno, who happens to be a hitting instructor.

“We still go out and hit before every game and every practice,” Jamison said. “He pushes me to be the best I can.”

Just as confidence has helped her team this year, Jamison said it’s helped her own game, both at the plate and in the field, and it’s a big reason why she’s struck out just one time.

“I look for first-pitch strikes,” said Jamison, a Stockton University recruit. “And the key is not to get down on yourself. If you swing and miss at the first pitch, you still have two more strikes left.”

Jamison said her team’s chemistry is a big reason for its success.

On Thursday, after they fell behind, 8-2, Jamison said players were picking each other up. No one in the dugout lost faith, and everyone did their job.

“We knew we could come back,” said Jamison, who grew up and Millville and has played with many of her teammates most of her life.

Despite losing several key seniors from last year, Millville has already notched wins over some of the best teams in South Jersey, including Northern Burlington and Vineland.

Vineland, of course, is the Thunderbolts’ biggest rivals. The Fighting Clan handed Millville three of its four losses last year, including in the South Jersey Group 4 championship.

“Beating Vineland,” Jamison said, “showed us what we’re capable of this year.”

Just like last year, Millville might see Vineland two more times before the season is over.

Because of several weather delays, the teams will meet for a regular-season game on May 16. If the Thunderbolts win, they will be the outright Cape-Atlantic League American Division champions. If they lose, they split the title with Vineland.

All of that precedes what could be another showdown in the South Jersey Group 4 tournament, an event that’s stacked even beyond the two Cape-Atlantic rivals.

It’s a daunting challenge. But this is the time of year the Millville players have worked so hard for.

The team has seen huge contributions up and down the lineup, including players such as pitcher Mahogany Wheeler, who has done an admirable job in the circle and is batting .578, and Jamison, who has served as a senior leader on a team that needed just that.

Her leadership is another example of how Jamison seems to provide exactly what her team needs when it needs it.

It’s something she’s hoping will continue for a few more weeks.

“We just have to have confidence,” Jamison said. “My team has a great bond. We’re all really close, and that’s why we’ve been playing so well. So we just need that to continue.”

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