Charlottesville's Maggie Heaphy shines both on and off the baseball field (2024)

Charlottesville High School student body president Maggie Heaphy approached the stage in the auditorium.

At an institution that had just had three days of classes canceled after a series of brawls broke out on school grounds, more than 1,000 people awaited a strong, relatable voice that could help uplift the community.

Heaphy delivered upon that hope.

“I’ve never seen somebody command an assembly of 1,200 people like that,” CHS girls basketball head coach Jim Daly said. “And, she talked about what it meant to be a Black Knight. I just really think that helped set the tone. Like, it’s okay to have pride in this place.”

Coming out of a tumultuous time at Charlottesville High School, Heaphy was a necessary voice for her fellow classmates.

“I just know that as the student body president, Maggie has the respect of her peers, and she just has a very calming demeanor about her,” Black Knights baseball head coach Robert Cox said.

“Just the fact that she had the courage to get up there and speak in front of the entire school says a lot about her character.”

With the opportunities she had garnered in over three years at CHS, it was natural for her to speak up for its value.

“I have so much love for that school,” she said. “There’s so much good happening there that isn’t seen unless you’re like me in the halls, and that’s what I really think should be emphasized.”

The internal strength displayed at the assembly has been showcased throughout Heaphy’s athletic career, being the lone girls varsity baseball player at any public school in Virginia this past season.

Her primary sport as a child was initially soccer, but familial influence helped guide her toward the diamond.

“My dad had played baseball for most of his life, and so, I’d always throw in the yard with him,” Heaphy said.

She played in McIntire Little League, where it was not uncommon for other girls to play baseball, with most of them eventually transitioning to the softball field.

Yet, Heaphy stood firm on the game she knew.

“I didn’t really look back,” Heaphy said. “I kind of kept doing it to see how far it could take just because I love it so much.”

When she was in the fifth grade, she joined the DC Girls Baseball program, where she spent summers playing the game with other athletes like herself.

About a year after starting in the organization, one of Heaphy’s coaches submitted her to be featured in a section of a Sports Illustrated Kids edition when she was about 11 years old.

She was eventually selected, and was displayed within the pages of the prestigious magazine.

“It just made me the happiest,” Heaphy said. “I always looked forward to getting that in the mail when I was a kid for as long as I can remember, and I would always look at that exact section and see who those kids are.”

The featuring of her also provided encouragement for Heaphy, who was watching fellow girls baseball players depart for softball frequently.

“It was empowering, and motivating,” Heaphy said. “It showed me that I could do it, and that my story was valid and that people wanted to hear about it.”

As time went on, she endured the trials and tribulations attributed with being the lone girl on her respective teams.

“I was being told things like, ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ ‘You should switch to other sports,’” Heaphy said. “It’s always been difficult to deal with.”

She endured a level of pressure her male counterparts typically do not have to go through.

“It’s more usually from opponents or spectators that this comes from,” Heaphy said. “A lot of comments from other teams’ dugouts when I’m hitting or in the field — just kind of snarky things, like ‘You don’t belong here,’ ‘Go back to softball.’”

However, she has utilized the negative reception as something to neutralize the competition.

“I’ve kind of learned to use it as fuel, and to kind of prove them wrong,” Heaphy said. “That’s kind of the mindset that I go into every game with, is, ‘I’m here for a reason and I gotta do all I can to prove them wrong and show them that I belong here.’”

Despite the hostility from opposing sides, the baseball environment she’s enveloped herself in has given Heaphy plenty of reason to keep striving forward.

“I’ve never been denied from being on a team before. I’ve been very lucky to have supportive coaches for the most part,” she said. “I think growing up in Charlottesville and being in Charlottesville especially, the baseball community’s pretty tight-knit… I’ve been lucky to be known and know people [being] supportive through that.”

The largest helping hands for Heaphy have ultimately been her parents. Along with guiding her into the game, both followed through on the hectic travel schedule of her athletic ventures.

“The two of them have been my biggest fans through it all,” Heaphy said. “It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like if I didn’t have them there driving me to all those tournaments, the early mornings, all of that. So, I’m very thankful for them.”

When Heaphy’s ninth grade year arrived and the time came to play for the Black Knights, she made a positive impression through her skill set.

“She was smaller than everybody else, but what she lacked in size, she made up [for] with fundamentals, baseball IQ, she had very good hands,” Cox said. “It was clear that she could handle herself just fine on the baseball field.”

Standing at 5-foot-5, Heaphy understood where she needed to specialize in the high school game.

“I look different than all the guys on the field, for sure. There’s a noticeable difference in body shape and size and everything,” Heaphy said. “My main thing — I’m a middle infielder. I play second base primarily, so a lot of my game relies on fundamentals, being smart, being quick.”

While being a sure-handed glove for Charlottesville, she provides a contact-heavy approach at the plate.

“I’ll never be a power hitter, but the very least I can do is help my team and get on base as much as I can,” Heaphy said.

Playing in McIntire Little League and for the Black Knights led her to many positive connections in baseball, with left-handed pitcher Aidan Peters being one of them.

Peters passed away from his battle with cancer in the summer of 2023, and Heaphy ensured he would be in her memory during her senior season.

“A lot of my game is modeled after him and playing for him, because I know he would have done anything to be on the field still,” Heaphy said. “He’s a big influence of mine, and he’s a good friend of mine, and I still look up to him a lot.”

In the 2024 season, Charlottesville made its first postseason run in more than two decades, and played Sherando, the No. 1 seed, in the first round of Region 4D tournament.

In the opening inning, Heaphy made a difficult over-the-shoulder grab. Following her impressive catch, the Warriors scored their only run of the game. The Black Knights eventually defeated Sherando, 2-1, in extra innings.

“If Maggie hadn’t made that catch, theoretically, they would have scored two runs, and it could have been a very different outcome for us,” Cox said. “One of the last plays she made in a CHS uniform was arguably her most impressive or most meaningful.”

Heaphy will be walking the graduation stage on June 6, with plans to go to University of California-Berkeley for media-related studies. She has already shown interest in that realm as Editor-in-Chief of The Knight-Time Review at CHS.

While her time at Charlottesville High is winding down, Heaphy’s imprint on the school and baseball community will remain present after she departs.