Alyson Habetz was sorting through some old emails a few weeks ago, looking for material for the University of Alabama softball team’s senior day, and found something that Haylie McCleney had sent while she was still in high school.

“I’ve got a test today,” it read. “I’m studying because I’m going to ace it.”

That’s the drive that Habetz, a UA assistant coach, has seen since before McCleney ever stepped foot on the UA campus.

“She wants to be the best at everything she does,” Habetz said. “Not second; she wants to be first.”

It was fitting, then, that McCleney’s 300th career hit was a product of study.

Alabama’s senior center fielder from Morris had meticulously gone over game film of Georgia ace Chelsea Wilkinson, and noticed Wilkinson liked to bust left-handed hitters inside.

Her first time at bat against the Bulldogs on May 6 at Rhoads Stadium, McCleney had popped up. The next time around, she drove a single down the left field line to drive in a run. To that point, Wilkinson had been pitching her outside.

McCleney knew the inside pitch had to be coming soon.

In the bottom of the fourth inning of the Crimson Tide’s 7-2 victory, McCleney took a ball away. When the next offering came chest-high, inside over the line of the left-handed batter’s box, McCleney leaned back a bit as she started her compact swing and swatted it over the right-field fence.

The home run made McCleney a member of one of college softball’s elite societies – the 100-200-300 Club. She became the 21st player, and the fourth from UA, to amass at least 100 steals, 200 runs and 300 hits.

And she accomplished all that while making an A in every course on the way to graduating with a degree in exercise science.

“I don’t know how she does it,” Alabama coach Patrick Murphy said. “When I recruit them I tell them priority No. 1 is academics, priority No. 2 is softball and priority No. 3 is whatever else there’s time left for. With her, not much time was left.”

Her on-the-field performance never suffered. Alabama’s career leader in batting average (.450), on-base percentage (.572) and walks (196) is on her way to becoming a four-time All-American.

Her classwork earned her the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year award in the SEC, which comes with a $15,000 postgraduate scholarship. She’s been honored similarly by the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, which awarded another scholarship, won the school’s Paul W. Bryant Student-Athlete Award, and has garnered Academic All-America honors. On Thursday, she was named Academic All-America of the Year for softball.

“I don’t think I’m the smartest kid on this team,” she said. “I don’t think I’m the smartest at this university. I think grade-point average has little to do with actual intelligence.

“I do know that I work for everything I get.”

She attributes her academic success to time management, study habits and focus.

“You’ve got to put your phone away,” she said. “Making sure you get enough sleep the night before a test, eating breakfast before a test, you have to pay attention in class.”

Fellow senior Andrea Hawkins shared a major with McCleney. They took many classes together and have been study buddies.

“She gets out of class, types her notes up and comes over to study,” Hawkins said. “She has the same mentality in the classroom as on the field, that same competitive, focused mind set.

“She’s a smart cookie, she is, but she applies herself.”

McCleney tries to get to sleep by 9 or 10 o’clock and wakes up at 6 or 7 a.m. most days – earlier this spring because she was serving an internship in Alabama’s weight room, working not just with softball players but also rowers, golfers and the volleyball team.

She reads a devotional, first thing, then spends 10 or 15 minutes praying and meditating. Then she makes a list.

“I write down five things that I want to get done that day,” she said.

That list might include writing a paper or studying film of an opponent. It also includes chores such as laundry or cleaning her room.

About 85 percent of the time, she said, she gets through her list. If she doesn’t finish something, it goes on the top of the next day’s list. She tries to get everything done before practice, so she can be 100 percent absorbed in that and reward herself at night.

“I can watch TV for a little bit,” she said. “I always watch some kind of sporting event. I don’t want to be stressed at night.”

McCleney cites past teammates Kayla Braud, Ryan Iamurri and Jackey Branham – all Academic All-Americans – with showing her the way.

“I learned from them how to manage all of that and how to handle the daily stresses,” she said.

Her final semester this spring was less stressful. She was far enough along toward her degree that all she lacked were six credit-hours for her internship, which required 180 hours of field experience in the weight room.

It all was carefully planned.

The schedule allowed her to prepare for and pass a graduate-school entrance exam. She also passed National Strength and Conditioning Association’s specialist exams and the certification test from the American College of Sports Medicine for exercise physiology, which will allow her to teach in graduate school.

McCleney has been accepted into her preferred program, one not offered at Alabama. She will seek a master’s degree in exercise science and health promotion with a concentration in strength and conditioning at Florida Atlantic University, one of 18 schools in the country that offers such a program.

“I’m very, very lucky to be in the position I’m in,” she said.

McCleney knew she was going to graduate school, but the McWhorter scholarship will go a long way toward easing the financial burden on her family.

While they didn’t demand all A’s, McCleney’s parents made it known that if she graded lower for lack of studying, there would be consequences. It was part of her makeup long before college.

It has been present in her academics and on the softball field. McCleney studies and works for what she gets.

Habetz once asked her why she always stayed late for extra batting practice.

“You’re already good,” Habetz said. “What makes you do this?”

“I want to master it,” McCleney said.

Over the last four years that has been tempered with maturity. Habetz remembers McCleney returning to the dugout as a freshman, furious at herself after a strikeout. At first, the coach said, it was more about a battle between McCleney and herself to achieve.

That changed.

“The transformation of her over time,” Habetz said, “now she doesn’t just want to be the best, she wants others to come with her. She has evolved into a tremendous leader.”

Now she stays after practice to teach. She often works with Rachel Bobo, a walk-on who contributes mostly as a pinch runner.

“Do you know what that does for Bobo?” Habetz said. “That’s just special. You can’t teach that. It’s just in her.”

Until a couple of days before she joined, McCleney never had heard of the 100-200-300 Club, whose membership includes past UA greats Kelly Krestchman, Brittany Rogers and Braud.

What does she value most: the hits, the runs or the steals?

Try four years of straight A’s.

“That’s the thing I hold a little closer to my heart,” she said. “That’s the thing I hold as a higher standard than anything else.”