Give credit to Marist’s Gabi Novickas. The junior third baseman knows what she wants out of life, then goes out and gets it.
She’s committed to Georgia, and it didn’t take long for her to determine that’s where she wanted to play softball and study. Try a few hours.
Ask her about it, and she gushes.
“I had never been to Georgia before until this past year,” Novickas said of attending a camp with her travel team. “I fell in love with it. As soon as I got off campus, the smile couldn’t leave my face.
“I just knew after that one camp that’s where I wanted to be.”
If her statistics are any barometer, the Bulldogs are getting a player who can hit for both power and average. She’s batting .470 with 39 hits, 10 doubles and 14 home runs for East Suburban Catholic Conference champion Marist (25-3, 11-1).
But that’s not all, according to coach Colleen Phelan. There’s her defense.
“What I like best about Gabi is everyone knows her as a big power hitter, but she moves very, very well,” Phelan said. “She’s quick like a cat at third base. There are rockets hit down to her and she’s grabbing them up.”
Senior shortstop Caroline O’Brien confirmed that Novickas is a motivator simply by virtue of the work she does on the field.
“She’s the hardest working person I know, and she’s never satisfied,” O’Brien said. “That’s something that she’s taught me. She could go for a home run, and the next day, she’s on the field working.”
Novickas grew up around sports. She tried soccer, volleyball and basketball before softball.
It didn’t take her long to get hooked … and offload all those other sports.
By her freshman year at Marist, she was on the varsity. It was a challenge mentally.
“I wasn’t the star that year,” she said. “I wasn’t doing much or anything, and I had never really gone through something like that before, so it was understanding my time wasn’t then and that I needed to be there for my team.”
She got astute mentorship from upperclassmen in college recruits Eileen Donahue (Illinois) and Kaitlyn Wright (St. Xavier).
“She was kind of a workhorse,” Phelan recalled. “I remember her coming in primarily as a first baseman, and we had a couple of those, but we didn’t have multiple third basemen, so I shot her across the diamond to train behind Kaitlyn Wright.”
As a sophomore, however, Novickas started at third base and helped lead Marist to the Class 4A state championship. According to her, that was an “insane” experience.
“The team was everything you could ask for,” she said. “From our hitting to our defense and our pitching, everything was on point. And that state game was electric.
“Just the feeling of that last pitch, it was amazing.”
Now that she’s a junior and starring for another power-packed team, Novickas is taking a lead role in helping five freshmen starters get comfortable.
“My approach is kind of understanding that it’s OK to make mistakes,” Novickas said. “That we still have your back, and being there to support them.”
Marist’s Gabi Novickas (22) points to her teammates at home plate after hitting a solo home run against Lockport during the Class 4A Marist Supersectional in Chicago on Monday, June 5, 2023. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
Although the playoffs are imminent and she still has her senior season, including signing in November with Georgia, change will be afoot when she gets to Athens.
She was recruited as a first baseman.
But Novickas is planning on taking that in stride, and why not? She’ll be playing for her dream school and studying biology. She’s a huge fan of the sciences.
“They’re both corners, but I think they are completely different,” she said of her position change. “I’m hoping it’s a nice, easy adjustment.”
Gregg Voss is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
