When you take a shy girl from a small town, a high school graduate from a class of 500 students, you get a shy girl. But when you take that same girl and put her on the field, she comes into her own. Meet senior and shortstop Jeane Drury.

“I was really shy all my life,” Drury said. “But in sports I wasn’t. So since I’ve been here at Pace, I’ve taken the leadership I’ve always had in sports and applied it to other aspects of my life.”

A native from Mount Olive, NJ she was born to James and Annemarie Drury. She is the eldest of four siblings. Cathy and CJ are twins and play softball and track and field, respectively. Then there is Jason, who plays football.

Drury started playing softball when she was six-years-old. To this day, it’s her favorite sport of all she has participated in.

She attended Morris Catholic High School, where she played basketball and softball. In high school she had over 150 hits, was First Team All-County from 2009-2011, and was MVP for four years. Her team went to the state finals her senior year, but lost. She remembers the moment she fell in love with the game.

“I think it was when we went to the Babe Ruth World series and that whole journey,” Drury said.

That Babe Ruth World Series proved to be a defining moment for Drury, with her team placing fourth in the series.
She remembers the thrills and compares it to her past experiences with postseason softball.

Drury’s dad played an important role in her career as well. Her dad coached her siblings through all their various sports, making it a family affair.

“My dad was my coach for everything until high school,” Drury said. “My dad used to tell me, even if you aren’t the best go out there telling yourself that you’re the best. My mom’s always been supportive in whatever I’ve done too.”

That plays into her character on the field. She’s the kind of player that leads by example and is an intense player on the field, but she wants to remain humble and confident. She likes to hype her team up, which as she claims, isn’t who she is off the field.

“On the field I feel I’m just in my element and go out there, be me, and be outgoing,” Drury said. “Off the field I’m more stand back and let someone talk to me before I’d talk to them.”

As of April 18, Pace Softball (17-11, 9-5 NE-10) is currently third overall in the NE-10 rankings behind Southern New Hampshire and Adelphi, but it’s in the midst of one of its best seasons.

“Coach [Claudia Stabile] has done really well recruiting this year; some of the best I’ve seen since my freshman year,” Drury said. “She brought in a lot of talent. A lot of the freshmen are really starting to step up and play really well for us.”

Through April 18, Drury has a batting average of .426, but was batting above .500 for a time during the season. She’s collected 40 hits, ten hits shy of her personal best here at Pace. She’s smacked four home runs, driven in 28 RBIs and scored 21 times. However, it is not just her. She’ll be the first to praise her team.

“I think the thing that’s changed the most is the confidence because my freshman year I went out there and I had some confidence in some players, but if the ball was hit to them you’d cringe,” Drury said. “This year I walked out there and knew that any ball that was hit would be fielded and any player can get a hit when needed. We had a team meeting before the season when we got back from Winter break and we said we can go really far this year.”

She’s unique, but she’s like everyone else too. Drury hangs out with friends, goes to the Jersey Shore with her family, and of course plays sports. She was a premium sales intern—handling the luxury suites and expensive tickets for Yankee Stadium—in the summer of 2014. She was escorting what would be Derek Jeter’s personal assistant who said she needed to give Jeter some tickets. His assistant brought Drury to the players parking garage where she met him.

“I didn’t think anything of it because I didn’t know who she was,” Drury said. “I ended up meeting Jeter. It was really cool, he was with a family for his Turn 2 foundation and he came up to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Derek’ even though I knew exactly who he was, which made him seem really down to earth and human.”

Even though she considers herself shy off the field, she got one of her most interesting memories off it.