Bay Shore pitcher Liz Weber is Newsday's LI softball player of the year

At the age of 10, Liz Weber got her first taste of what it was like to be a softball hurler. And she hated it.

"My mom heard about pitching lessons and thought she'd sign me up," Weber said. "I cried the first time. I didn't want to be a pitcher. I just wasn't interested in it. I liked playing first base a lot better."

Eight years, numerous awards and one state championship later, her opinion has changed.

"I found that I just liked all the action, being the main attraction," said the Bay Shore senior who was named Newsday's Long Island softball player of the year. "I liked the rush of pitching."

In the Long Island Championship game against East Meadow, Weber pitched a shutout, stranding runners in scoring position in six of seven innings. In the state championship game against Cicero-North Syracuse, she was even better, throwing a two-hitter. If the rush was what she was after, mission accomplished.

"What sets her apart is that she has a tremendous work ethic," coach Jim McGowan said. "She really has a will to succeed. She put a lot of time and effort into it and she practices with a purpose and plays with passion."

The only start Weber lost this season she began with six innings of perfect softball. A walk, hit and home run in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the Suffolk Class AA championship against Whitman shot the perfecto - and win - to pieces. She came back to win the next two games, even blanking Whitman in the finale to take the series.

But it wasn't the six perfect innings in Game 1 or the shutout in Game 3 that best showed Weber's pitching potential. Rather, it was the second inning of Game 2, an otherwise non-descript frame with Weber facing a Whitman team that appeared to have the momentum, if not the advantage. And with one addition to her arsenal, she took it back.

"That's some next-level stuff there!" McGowan yelled from the sideline as he watched Weber's changeup fool the hitters. Just a game after her only loss of the year, Weber was in the circle throwing some of her best pitches of the year.

"Once she gets a consistent changeup, she's going to be that next-level pitcher," McGowan said. "She can blow some high school teams away, but once that becomes consistent she has a very, very high ceiling."

When she starts attending Le Moyne College in September, Weber will primarily be pitching, though she'll also play some first base. Despite her impressive pitching stats, she'll wow you almost as much at the plate.

The key number: a team-high 40 RBIs from the leadoff spot.

"I never really hit leadoff before, but after a couple of games, I loved it," she said. "I loved being the first one out there to hit. I worked a lot in the offseason, and every at-bat, I just relaxed and went up there with a positive attitude and tried my best to set the table."

If all works out at college, Weber will eventually stop setting the table on a softball field and start serving tables at her own restaurant. She plans to major in business with designs on becoming a restaurateur and though she hasn't quite decided the cuisine yet, she apparently makes a mean chicken enchilada.

"I want to own a small restaurant on a beach somewhere," Weber said. "I just like cooking and I like going to weird hole-in-the-wall type restaurants."

But for now, the focus is squarely on softball, and surely winning a state title her senior year should make the transition to the college level that much easier.

"It makes me feel a little like I'm kind of one step ahead," Weber said. "Now I've just got to get a national championship."