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When Alicia Keys starts belting out “this girl is on fire” over a rousing drum beat, she may as well be singing about LaGrange’s own Hudson Wood. 

The junior softball slugger is off to a blistering start to her 2023 campaign for the Grangers. In just six games, Wood already has five home runs, two more than her total from all of last season.

On Friday, she hit four home runs over the span of a doubleheader that lasted just six total innings combined, which was more home runs than she had in the entirety of last season.

In fact, she hit three home runs in 83 at bats last year, good enough for a home run percentage of just under 4%. This season she has five home runs in 16 at bats which is a home run percentage of 31%.

It is not like these are inside-the-park home runs that she is legging out to pad stats. Every single one of her home runs this season has traveled out of the park, specifically Granger Park, as all five have come on her home turf. 

It is still early in the season, but Wood is hitting .563 so far this season after leading the team with a .410 batting average last year as a sophomore. She drove in 23 runs and scored 33 last year as a sophomore and is on pace to set new career highs in both of those categories if she can keep up her hot start to the season. She already has 11 RBIs and seven runs scored. 

She is not the only LaGrange player that has made the team a must watch attraction at Granger Park. Fellow junior Abby McGill already has three home runs to her name as well. McGill had no home runs a season ago. 

ClaryAnn Adcock and Kimberly Reynolds each have one to their name this year. The team already has more home runs this season (10) than they had all of last season (9), all without the leading home run hitter from last year — Carolyne Garcia with four — getting a single one so far this season.

The power-hitting Grangers led by Wood will be back in action on the road to Trinity Christian on Thursday.