The ball flew off Dorian Shaw’s bat during Michigan softball batting practice earlier this month. The neon-yellow ball moved so fast that, by the time an observer tracked it against an overcast sky, it had collided with metal fencing.

The fencing was at the top of the right-field bleachers in Alumni Stadium.

Shaw’s teammates cheered. The junior first baseman merely stepped back into the batter’s box for another pitch.

“Sometimes she drops our jaws,” senior third baseman Maggie Viefhaus said. “But if you just look at her, you can tell she’s a great hitter.”

Teammates can forget the violent nature of Shaw’s power. They are used to it. Opponents, like those she’ll see in this weekend’s NCAA regional in Ann Arbor, aren’t.

Even at Michigan, which kicks off its postseason against Wright State at 7 p.m. Friday, Shaw’s ability is unique.

She has always played like this, from the time her first home run clanged off the center-field pole as a 12-year-old in Alexandria, Va. Aside from natural size and strength, fast hands are the key ingredient to her power.

"They are as fast as any kid we've ever had," Michigan softball coach Carol Hutchins said. "I've had some power hitters. But she is as powerful as probably I'll ever have."

Consider one play Hutchins remembers at Ohio State this year, where she thought the ball might go through the fence in Columbus.

“I don’t do the whole lofty doubles that land at the warning track," Shaw said. "I don’t know how to find that middle ground, which I guess isn’t a bad thing.”

Now it isn’t. A year ago was different.

Back then, one bad swing took her out of an at-bat. One bad at-bat mentally removed her from a game. Her home-run totals were respectable last season - she hit a team-high 14 and three came in one game against Baylor.

But her .253 sophomore year average trailed her freshman year average of .285. Compare those numbers to this year, when she is hitting .359 heading into the postseason.

“Last year I let myself spiral and I shouldn’t have,” Shaw said. “I didn’t come back from my slump as quickly as I would have liked to. But at the same time, I found a way to help the team. At the end of the Big Ten season, I was getting hits that were game-winning hits but they weren’t home runs. They weren’t off the wall, but they did the job.

“That’s what I had to be OK with and that was hard for me.”

She’d hit game-winners and leave the field upset because they weren’t home runs. She felt pressure to carry Michigan despite the talent surrounding her.

Shaw said Hutchins tried everything to reach out. One day she’d yell. The next she’d be instructive. Then she’d try being overly nice. No approach consistently worked.

So Hutchins suggested Shaw speak with Michigan sports psychologist Greg Harden. At first, Shaw hesitated. She was “being stubborn.”

Yet Hutchins kept reminding her. Then Harden approached Shaw, asking why she hadn’t stopped by. She relented. It became a career-changing decision.

“She definitely encouraged me to go talk to him, and I was stubborn about it,” Shaw said. “And I went, and now I am eating my own words.”

Having an outlet in Harden gave Shaw an independent voice to channel things through.

Everyone else she spoke with - her coaches, teammates and parents - had their own opinions with vested interests. Harden listened with nothing invested except making Shaw feel better about herself.

The community of support gave constant feedback. Hutchins would say something and Shaw would call her father, James, a former basketball player at Cal State Dominguez Hills to discuss it. Then she’d take what her dad said and bounce it off Harden.

Combined, they convinced Shaw she didn’t need to become frustrated if she didn’t hit a home run. 

It helped this year. As Michigan’s No. 5 hitter, she leads the Wolverines in home runs with 18 and walks with 40. She has the team lead in RBIs with 55, and her power has become even more devastating as she keeps herself in every at-bat.

No longer do her expectations turn her brain into a villain.

“(Harden), in conjunction with my coaches and my parents, helped me realize people aren’t going to love you any less if I don’t hit a home run,” Shaw said. “I’m not going to go home and my mom is going to be like ‘Move out, you didn’t hit today so you have to get your stuff and go.’ That’s not going to happen.

“The day that I realized that pressure wasn’t on me, it was like ‘What am I even stressing out for? Why am I doing this to myself? It’s unhealthy. It’s making me crazy.’ It’s not helping my performance so that was the biggest realization, that it’s just a game.”

It happens to be a game Shaw is extremely good at.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein