Alapese Matautia
As the best hitter on the best team in the NWAC this year, Anchorage’s Alapese Matautia is making a strong case for MVP.
The sophomore slugger for Southwestern Oregon Community College is crushing the ball and has emerged as a legit triple-crown threat as she ranks eighth in the league with a .545 batting average, third with 13 home runs and second with 67 RBIs in 30 games.
The former Bartlett High star is her team’s cleanup hitter cleaning up at the plate as she’s averaged a home run every 6.7 at-bats.
Matautia headlines a SWOCC squad that has posted a league-best 28-2 record and won 20 straight games. The Lakers are 12-0 in the South region and immersed in a virtual tie with Mt. Hood (24-4, 13-1) for the No. 1 seed.
Superiority in the NWAC might still be undecided, but what’s not in doubt is Matautia’s status among the greatest home run hitters from Alaska.
She’s officially in the club after becoming just the third player to furnish two seasons with double digit dingers, joining Fairbanks’ Kacey Duffield and Anchorage’s Pauline Tufi.
SISTERS OF SWAT
Most HRs in single season
19 – Kacey Duffield, Indian Hills 2016
17 – Lillian Bullock, NC A&T 2007
*13 – Alapese Matautia, SWOCC 2023
12 – Pauline Tufi, LaTech 2015
12 – Kacey Duffield, Indian Hills 2015
12 – Alapese Matautia, SWOCC 2022
11 – Pauline Tufi, LaTech 2016
10 – Kacey Duffield, UTEP 2019
*Active
With 12 games left in the regular season and a likely postseason appearance, Matautia has a shot to break Alaska’s single-season home run record of 19 set by Duffield in 2016 at Indian Hills Community College.
Duffield that year hit .442 with 19 home runs and 71 RBIs and was named to the NJCAA Division I All-American Second Team. She helped Indian Hills go 74-32 in her two seasons in Ottumwa, Iowa, and went on to play at NCAA Division I UTEP and hit 10 bombs in 2019.
Tufi starred at Louisiana Tech, where she hit 35 home runs – one more than Anchorage’s Lillian Bullock for No. 1 on Alaska’s all-time list at the NCAA Division I level.
Matautia has 25 career home runs at the junior-college level after hitting 13 this year and 12 last year for SWOCC. As a freshman she hit .464 with 56 RBIs in 46 games.
She was good last year, but Matautia has been great this year.
She’s riding a 10-game hitting streak and has hit safely in 27 of 30 games. Twenty-seven of her 48 hits have gone for extra bases.
The 5-foot-7 shortstop hit five home runs in February, five in March and three so far in April. She hit two bombs in the same game three times.
And then there was Feb. 25, the day she hit four homers and drove in 10 runs in a doubleheader sweep of Blue Mountain. She had two homers and four RBIs in Game 1 and two homers and six RBIs in Game 2.
Alapese Matautia has hit a home run every 6.7 at-bats this season. Photo by Tina Woodworth/SWOCC Athletics