The Gold Standard
Sophomore Ana Gold Sets New Home Run Record Bar for Top 10 Duke Softball
Meredith Rieder, GoDuke The Magazine
This story originally appeared in the 14.10 Issue of GoDuke The Magazine – May 2023
Father knows best. Well, that is the case when it comes to softball for Blue Devil sophomore Ana Gold.
Buoyed by her parents’ confidence in her from an early age, especially that of her father Eric who played baseball at Tusculum College, Gold is having a season to remember individually, while Duke as a team is heading into NCAA postseason action as the No. 8 overall seed on the strength of a program-best 45-10 record.
Gold set the Duke single-season home run record held by All-America Jameson Kavel with her 18th shot over the fence in a win over Georgia Tech April 21. Entering the NCAA Tournament she was second in the ACC and 10th nationally in home runs while leading the Blue Devils in slugging percentage (.720) and walks (24).
RECORD-SETTING HOME RUN ?? @agold04 pic.twitter.com/LIJmXOiOsy
— Duke Softball (@DukeSOFTBALL) April 23, 2023
As Gold neared the record — she remembers being at 15 home runs and realizing it certainly was within reach — she admits it was in the back of her mind. That’s when she turned to someone who knows a little something about hitting in assistant coach Sydney Romero, who finished her career at Oklahoma as the program’s all-time leader in at-bats and doubles.
“It was in the back of my mind and so I talked to Coach Romero, and she reminded me to play my game,” Gold said. “It’s going to happen. I don’t need to think about it because the more I do the more pressure I’m going to put on myself and that’s going to affect my game. She just reminded me to stay confident and to trust myself and not worry about that.”
There goes that confidence piece again. Put in place first by her parents and family, it developed gradually within Gold over time. She doesn’t remember the exact moment she first picked up a bat, but most likely it was during one of the family whiffle ball games that regularly broke out in the backyard of her Ballston Spa, N.Y., home. Those games also were where Gold got her first taste of competition.
“Playing whiffle ball in our backyard was something me and my brothers did all the time,” said Gold. “There were definitely a few little fights that broke out here and there, but I think that’s just the competitive nature of us siblings and I think that’s a reason why we’ve been so successful, because we’ve always pushed each other and been competitive with one another.”
Her older brother Luke played at Boston College and was drafted in the fifth round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Detroit Tigers. Her younger brother, Joseph, is committed to pitch at Boston College.
When older brother Luke started playing baseball, Ana wanted to be just like him, so she joined a tee-ball squad. Fast forward a few years and Ana was playing alongside her younger brother Joseph on the local Little League team.
Ana was a little reticent, as was the team of young boys to have a girl on the squad, but her parents’ encouragement and assurance and having Joseph by her side eased her fears. Her obvious skill didn’t hurt either as her teammates quickly accepted her into the group.
“I was around 10 and I started to play Little League and I was the only girl, so it was kind of a big deal,” Gold said. “I was the only girl on the team, and I was a little skeptical at first playing, but my mom and my dad really encouraged me. At first the boys were like, ‘Awww, we have a girl on our team.’ They weren’t really excited about it but then once I started playing, they realized I was good, and it was just up from there.”
And up from there it was. Gold hit the softball field the next year and hit the first of her many home runs to come down the road.
“I remember when I hit my first home run when I was 11 and I was playing softball,” Gold said. “It was really cool because I think I was the first girl on our team to ever hit a home run over the fence, so all the girls were so excited.”
The ball continued to fly off her bat and she slowly came to the realization of what her dad had been telling her all along — she was pretty good at this softball thing. Excelling at the plate — she was hitting so many more home runs than her teammates — and on the field, Gold decided to try out for the Ballston Spa High School Varsity squad as an eighth grader.
Despite being four years younger than many of the players, Gold made the team and found a lot of success. Smiling sheepishly, Gold acknowledged it was that moment she knew she could take her softball career to the next level.
“That was when I realized I wanted to play college softball, just knowing I could compete with girls four years older than me and have a lot of success,” she said.
Ballston Spa, N.Y., is not a hotbed for collegiate softball players so after playing with the local Miss Scotties team for some time, Gold switched to a team started by her dad called The Gamers.
“He just wanted us to be able to get into more competitive tournaments just because I had the dream of playing college softball and we knew if I was going to do that I would have to go on to bigger teams and teams that were known by college coaches,” Gold said about The Gamers.
In high school, Gold joined Team South Carolina. Connected to the team through Softball Factory, she would play in tournaments in the summer and a couple in the fall allowing her to be seen by college coaches. Gold also started to attend college camps at this time and continued to stand out among the players there, allowing Gold’s confidence to grow.
“I just realized then it was a possibility for me, and my dad was a huge part in that because he knows the game so well,” Gold said. “And hearing it from him, it was very reassuring. He’s never wrong when it comes to this softball and baseball stuff.”
Gold stepped foot on Duke’s campus officially as a Blue Devil in August of 2021, the fall after the team won an ACC championship and advanced to its first NCAA Tournament before falling in heartbreaking fashion to Georgia in the NCAA Regional.
Anchored by a group of nine graduate students and seniors who had been with the program since it started in 2018, Gold stepped right in as a rookie and helped Duke reach yet another benchmark. Gold started 51 of the 53 games, hit .311 and smacked 10 home runs as Duke hosted a regional for the first time and advanced to the NCAA Super Regional before losing to perennial power UCLA in two games. She was recognized for her success, garnering All-ACC Freshman Team and All-ACC Third Team recognition.
With the departure of eight of those nine veterans from the year prior, the Blue Devils’ 2023 squad was young and with that came the inevitable growing pains in the fall. Gold admits the team struggled at times in the early months on campus, but through tough conversations they’ve come out stronger.
“We had a few bumps in the road during the fall,” Gold said. “But we came together as a team and we just talked it out. We realized if we want to be a great team and make it as far as we can we need to have that tight relationship and we need to build more trust and that’s exactly what we did. I feel like we’ve never been closer than we are right now, and I think that carries over onto the field.”
Gold and the Blue Devils have been great. Entering NCAA play, Duke was ranked fifth in the latest National Fastpitch Coaches Association poll and owned wins over No. 4 Florida State, No. 7 Stanford, No. 10 Clemson, No. 13 Arkansas and No. 24 Virginia Tech.
One of the keys for Gold and the Blue Devils is their confidence. They all know they don’t have to have their best day every day because someone will step up.
“We’re playing more for each other than for ourselves and we know that we have each other’s backs,” Gold said. “If we don’t get the job done then the next girl is going to. So just having that relationship, the really tight relationship helps on the field.”
Gold carries the confidence she built over the years to each at-bat and she’s quickly become one of the most feared hitters in the ACC. She leads the team in walks (24) and RBI (54) and is sixth in the ACC in the hit by pitch per game average as opposing pitchers try to do their best to give her a pitch she can’t hit.
She spends hours honing her craft through practice and watching a lot of film. While the team watches tape to learn what each pitcher throws, Gold takes time on her own to watch her at-bats. She dissects her previous trips to the plate, looks at whether she’s swinging at strikes or why she might not be finding success or what worked well for her. Regardless of the situation, she is stepping into the batter’s box with a fierceness that is hard to match.
“I think confidence is a huge part of my success at the plate,” Gold said. “Just telling myself I’m not going to let that pitcher beat me. She is bringing intensity and so I need to bring intensity. I go up to the plate looking for a pitch I know I can drive and if it’s there I’m going to let my swing go and good things happen.”
Gold, one of three sophomores to earn All-ACC first-team honors, and the Blue Devils have accomplished so much already in her two seasons in Durham. From surpassing Kavel in the Duke records book to helping the Blue Devils to 45 wins, Gold is cherishing the moment while also looking forward to what the future holds.
“It was just an amazing feeling,” Gold said about the moment she broke the home run record. “It still doesn’t feel real. I don’t know when it will settle in, but it’s pretty cool. And doing it as a sophomore and knowing I have so much more room to grow, it’s really exciting to see all the goals I can reach in the next few years.”
Go confidently forward Ana, because now it’s you who knows best.
Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call 336-831-0767.