Departments
Sports
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Week of 2 April 1999 |
Vol. II, No. 29 |
Sports
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Women's softball Terriers: united they stand -- and deliverBy Amy Dean There are two things women's Terrier softball fans are talking about these days: the team's seven-game winning streak, which included a hard-hitting drubbing of the University of Rhode Island on Terrier home turf (BU scored 13 runs in two games to URI's one), and Head Coach Deb Solfaro's six-game suspension of four players for violating team rules. It was the first time that Solfaro, in her fifth season as head coach at BU, has disciplined four players at one time. She declines to discuss the specifics of the infractions committed by two seniors and two juniors. "Our program is very committed to developing people," says Solfaro. "We care for everyone on the team, but we had to really deal with the violations and let the players know that as people, we all make mistakes. It's how you pick yourself up after you make a mistake that's most important. It's no different from what they will face in their lives outside BU, and we try to stress accountability in all of our players."
The suspension "has had a positive influence on the team," says Solfaro. "We're like a family, and this is bringing the team together. We're showing that as a team, we can turn this around." There's no denying that the Terriers have turned their backs on early season losses and are now chalking up the wins. "Our pitching is among the best in the league," says Solfaro. "Until now, hitting has been our weakest point. It's the toughest part of the game, and you can't drill it to death like you can the defensive plays. But I've told our players not to think about it so much, and they've started to relax. Even in the games we've lost, we've hit the ball incredibly hard. We need to keep doing that." Because both spring and the softball season come late in the academic year for college students in New England, the time commitment required from softball players can be tough. "We have to play a lot of games in a short time," says Solfaro. "Right now the players are going to games and going to classes." The Terriers study hard on the road -- they attended study halls whenever they came off the field in sunny Tampa, Fla., at the start of the season in early March. Surprisingly, the commitment to softball and the limited time available for studying mean that the players do better in spring season academically, says Solfaro. And although there is Terrier talent good enough for the Women's Professional Softball League and the Olympics, Solfaro points out that she's coaching "athletes who are preparing themselves for professional careers outside of softball. That's what we're really selling when we recruit players. We're selling the education, and the kids come here for the education and because they love Boston." That doesn't mean that the Terriers have given up on the ultimate goal of winning the NCAA title this year, which means outhitting and outfielding such opponents as league champ Hofstra, the Black Bears from Maine, and party-spoiler Delaware, which knocked BU out of the tournament last year. "We're still a young team, but we're very talented," says Solfaro. She asserts that the team has remained tough and united despite the season's early losses and the recent suspensions. "There have been times that maybe we haven't been the most talented team on the field," Solfaro says. "But we won because we played together." |
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