DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

When discussing Taylor West and her softball abilities, it’s important to throw presumptions out the window.

A quick glance at the Estancia High senior, and she doesn’t exactly look like the player who set the softball team record with her 10 home runs last season. She’s 5-foot-4, she said, even if the Eagles’ roster lists her somewhat generously at 5-6.

Add in the fact that West doesn’t play softball in the off-season, and those not in the know might dismiss her as only a mediocre hitter.

That, of course, would be a big mistake, and the Eagles center fielder has developed a recent knack for turning opponents’ pitches — mistakes or not — into home runs.

In her first five games of the season, West simply came out on fire. The reigning Dream Team Player of the Year and Orange Coast League MVP batted .667 with eight home runs and 19 RBIs. Her slugging percentage was an outrageous 2.048.

The eight home runs leads the state, according to maxpreps.com, as does the slugging percentage.

The player who rewrote the Estancia record books as the long-ball champ as a junior might do it again, and the season is still in mid-March. West is anything but simply a free-swinger, though. In those five games, she struck out just one time.

“It feels really cool,” West said. “It’s just quick hands and being patient for the ball. I used to be really anxious before I hit it, and just swing away and totally miss the ball. But I’ve been more patient up at the plate, just waiting for my pitch.”

First-year Coach Judd Fryslie thought it might take a while for West’s swing to come around. She came out late for softball since she was a forward on the Estancia girls’ soccer team in the winter, and the Eagles advanced to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division III playoffs.

But West worked on her swing with her dad, Matt, and Fryslie also brought in his daughter, Korina, who played softball collegiately at Mercer University (Ga.). And then, any doubts could probably be erased after West hit for the cycle in the season opener against Liberty Christian on March 1, going four for five with five RBIs.

Of West’s home runs this season, Fryslie said at least three were still going up as they traveled over the outfielder’s head. Although most of the area softball fields don’t have fences, Fryslie said that was a good barometer that many of them have been “legitimate.”

“I’ve seen a lot of ballplayers, and man, she’s got some power,” Fryslie said. “I’d say that’s the most power I’ve seen in a girl that size since Lovie Jung.”

Fryslie was an assistant on a former travel ball team of Jung, whose hometown is Fountain Valley. Jung went on to star at the University of Arizona and won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics with the U.S. national team.

“Very similar,” Fryslie said of the swings of West and Jung. “First of all, Taylor has a very level swing. Just amazingly quick and level. It doesn’t take her long to get it going; it’s probably in the wrists. And she’s got a very good eye; she knows the strike zone.”

In the outfield, her speed also comes in handy for Estancia (4-3).

“She takes care of the gaps really well,” Fryslie said. “She’s got inexperience on both sides of her, and she knows that. She’s very quick. That quickness allows her to play a little more shallow than some other outfielders would. That takes away a lot of those ‘excuse me’ hits, and that’s really big for us.”

West has earned plenty of accolades heading into her last season at Estancia. She’s been a four-year varsity player in golf, soccer and softball. She was a second-team All-CIF Southern Section Division IV selection in softball last year, helping the Eagles win their first league title in at least 15 years.

West said it depends on the season and she plays more soccer than softball, but softball is probably her favorite sport.

“I feel at home,” she said. “I’ve played here since I was a little girl.”

When she was younger, West was used to standing out, too, as a rare girl in the Costa Mesa National Little League. In 2003, she helped lead CMNLL to the Mayor’s Cup over Costa Mesa American. On that team, she played with current Estancia baseball players like Troy McClanahan and Gavin Montague.

“The boys always took me as a boy,” West said. “They never really thought of me as a girl until softball came around. But we always competed. I always beat out some of the boys, so that was always fun.”

Now she watches her younger brother, Ryan, who’s a seventh-grade baseball player at TeWinkle Middle School. Ryan’s position is the same as Taylor’s used to be in baseball: pitcher.

Taylor West wants to keep playing softball in college. She’s been accepted into Cal State Fullerton, where she said she may try to walk on.

“She wants to go to Fullerton,” Fryslie said. “I go, ‘Are you going to walk-on over there?’ and she said, ‘Maybe I should.’ She’s just laid-back. She likes to have fun. That’s her main goal right now, I think, just to have fun. We’ve got three seniors and she’s the quietest of the three. She leads by example.”

That’s what West is trying to do, in hopes of leading Estancia to another Orange Coast League crown. The Eagles have hot bats, with three other players — Amy Hartwell, Abby Koff and Haylee Whitney — all batting over .600.

“For sure,” West said. “We’ll probably be the underdogs, because in the Costa Mesa Tournament we lost to Costa Mesa and Calvary [Chapel]. But we’ll come back.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.