As the most dominant home run hitter in America last fall, it was only appropriate that Kendall Ferguson got the Barry Bonds treatment.
In Valor Christian’s lone state tournament game against Chaparral, Ferguson came to the plate five times. The Wolverines intentionally walked the Eagles catcher four times. The other at-bat? A no-doubt solo homer.
That was the final bomb of a staggering display of power in 2024. Ferguson led the nation with 25 homers while hitting .686 with a state-best 2.624 OPS and Class-5A best 58 RBIs. When the ’25 season kicks off Aug. 16, Valor Christian coach Dave Atencio is expecting a lot more free passes for the CSU-bound slugger.
“She may lead the nation in walks this year,” Atencio quipped. “As people started to recognize what a power hitter she was last year, she started getting walked a ton. And I would do the same thing.”
Ferguson averaged a dinger once every 2.8 at-bats in 2024 — a breakout season after hitting eight homers as a sophomore and none as a freshman.
“Freshman year, I was more on the timid side,” Ferguson said. “Sophomore year, I wanted to make a name for myself, and I think I did that. So in my junior year, I saw it as my year to shine and really put myself forward and show people what I was really all about.”
Aided by some mechanical and mental adjustments, Ferguson did just that.
Ferguson worked with her hitting coach, John Cronican, on stabilizing her lower half so she could rotate her upper body better and generate more power. She also simplified her thought process.
“She was willing to change, grow, take new information and see how she could apply it,” Cronican said. “She had a maturity of understanding that led to last season. … Mentally, instead of thinking about what pitch was coming or hitting to a situation, we simplified it to, ‘This pitch will be a strike and I will hit it hard.’”
Ferguson did that consistently while also emerging as the Eagles’ leader on defense. She’ll be a four-year starter this fall, and Atencio noted that he trusts her to call pitches and manage a game, unlike most other catchers he’s had in his 30 years coaching Colorado high school softball.
“She’ll get a bucket or two to hit during practice, and after practice she wants 40, 50 more pitches,” Atencio said. “On (Monday), we had Day 1 of mini-camp. It’s 95 degrees, we worked out for two hours. As soon as practice was over, she goes, ‘Coach, I want to work on my throwdowns.’ All three bases, and she didn’t leave until she made 10 straight good throws to each base.”
That obsession with softball has been a consistent theme for Ferguson since she started playing in sixth grade.
The Fairbanks, Alaska, native and daughter of DU hockey assistant coach Dallas Ferguson was a defenseman on the ice during elementary school, until one day, shortly after moving to Colorado, she decided to swap her stick for a bat.
The learning curve was steep at first, so much so that Ferguson’s first round-tripper was almost a half-tripper.
“In seventh grade, she hit the ball over the wall for the first time and had no idea what to do, because I don’t think the team had someone hit one over yet, and she had only hit ground-rule doubles that bounced over,” Dallas Ferguson recalled with a laugh. “She rounded first and then stopped at second. The coach had to tell her, ‘Keep running, you get to go all the way this time!’”
Now five years older and quite familiar with the home run trot, Ferguson hopes to “bring that energy from last season into this upcoming season” as Valor Christian aims for a return trip to the state tournament. Defending 5A champion Riverdale Ridge, plus other powers Broomfield and Cherokee Trail, are preseason favorites.
But with the game-changing pop in Ferguson’s bat, Valor has a chance to be in the mix on the season’s final Saturday in late October at Aurora Sports Park.
“Coming into this season, I want to showcase my ability even more,” Ferguson said. “Not to impress other people, but to prove it to myself that I have even more (in the tank) to help my team win.”
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