IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers GLOVE WORK- Newbury Park High shortstop Keilani Jennings digs a ball out of the dirt during Tuesday's game against Simi Valley. The Panther senior will play softball at UC Santa Barbara. Before Newbury Park High head softball coach Darrin Carr has a player try out for his squad, he's usually already heard something about the player through the grapevine if she's any good. Senior Keilani Jennings was different.

"Nobody had said anything to me about (Jennings) prior to her trying out," Carr said.

"She was taking ground balls at second base, and I must have hit 20 to 30 balls straight up the middle between short and second. She fielded all of them very smoothly. I turned to my assistant coach and said, 'We've got something real special here.'"

These days just about every coach and scout knows Jennings' name. Entering today's game at Calabasas, Jennings was batting .439, good for fifth in the Marmonte League. Her slugging percentage (.789) and onbase percentage (.529) rank second and third in the league, respectively.

Although Jennings may not get the headlines that Marmonte League standouts such as Simi Valley's Sam Fischer and Thousand Oaks' Tiffany Messerschmidt receive, the senior shortstop said she doesn't mind.

"To tell you the truth, I don't think about it," Jennings said. "I don't ever really look in the newspapers, and most of the time it's my friends that tell me I got some press."

During Jennings' first two years at Newbury Park, the team made the playoffs but she wasn't putting up strong numbers on offense. Jennings batted .194 her freshman year and followed it up with a .269 mark as a sophomore. During her junior year, the numbers started to really go up.

The NPHS star became more focused and began working out with another outstanding Ventura County shortstop- Camarillo High's Delaney Willard.

"Working with Willard helped me a lot," Jennings said. "We're good friends, and we try to help each other out.

"I believe another reason I started playing better was that college was just around the corner and I started to think if I played well, it would be a ticket in."

The hard work paid off as Jennings led the Panthers with a .342 batting average and four home runs her junior year. The offensive numbers continue to rise this season, and so have Jennings' personal goals.

"Before the season I made a goal that I wanted to bat .500 every game, whether it was going 2-for-4 or 1-for-2," Jennings said.

"I wanted to get on base more times than I got out."

After the first day of tryouts, Carr said he always knew that Jennings would be a great player, but he was surprised by how well the shortstop could hit.

"Her solid hitting kind of came out of nowhere," Carr said. "I knew she would be a good leadoff hitter and a solid fielder, but I never thought she would hit with the type of power she is now.

"When she first came up she was just a scrawny little freshman. Now her home runs are a constant thing. It's gotten to the point where in practice our fielders will stand on the other side of the leftfield fence to catch her home runs," the coach said.

Although Jennings' numbers are impressive, the Panthers have struggled this season.

With a 5-0 loss to Simi Valley on Tuesday, NPHS fell to 9-10 overall and 3-8 in league.

"It's been a little frustrating that we can't win as much, but we have a really close team, and that makes things easier," she said.

Jennings, who's headed to UC Santa Barbara on a full scholarship this fall, said when she looks back at her NPHS career, what she'll remember most is her team's night games against league rival Thousand Oaks.

"The night games against T.O. were awesome," Jennings said.

"On the mornings of those games I just couldn't wait to get up and play. They were such good games that players and parents from other teams in the league would come to see us play those nights."

Carr, who's coached Jennings four of the five years he's been at the helm of NPHS, said he'll miss his star player when she leaves.

"She's such a good kid, and you're not going to have players like her come around that often," Carr said.

"Whoever plays at short for us next has huge shoes to fill, but I'm not going to put that pressure on that girl since the shoes will be impossible to fill. I just wish that every coach had the pleasure of coaching someone like a Keilani Jennings every year."