Portland State Softball looking to repeat

This week marks the beginning of the 2010 softball season, and the start of Portland State’s defense of the Pacific Coast Softball Conference title.

This year’s Vikings squad features a bevy of new faces, as six freshmen and one transfer look to fill the big cleats that were left vacant after the team lost five starters and four first team all-conference players from last year’s championship club.

Despite the losses, Portland State is still the favorite to go all the way this season. The Viks were unanimously predicted in a preseason poll of conference coaches to win the Mountain Division and received nine of the 12 votes to win the first-ever championship series.

Second-year head coach Tobin Echo-Hawk is confident that her new class of freshmen has the caliber of talent to fill the holes left from last year’s departing players.

“They’re going to step in right away and make a difference as a whole,” she said. “Their mentality is very competitive and not satisfied with just getting by. They’re going to do whatever they can to succeed, so I’m excited to see what they can do.”

 Though the bumper crop of young talent should provide energy to a team looking to repeat, it is the pitching staff and its four-headed hydra of arms that will be the strength of the 2010 club. Senior Tori Rogers and junior Nichole Latham will again lead the rotation after combining to pitch 295 innings last season.

Latham, whose 145 strikeouts paced the PCSC last year, walked 75 while allowing opponents to hit a mere .226 off of her in the process. Rogers, whose season was abbreviated due to a foot injury, will look to build on her 2009 stats of a 2.49 ERA in 107 innings.

In her Portland State debut, Rogers pitched her first career no-hitter in a 10–0 win over McNeese State.

Latham and Rogers won’t be alone on the mound for the Viks. Sophomore Kendra Suhr and freshman standout Anna Bertrand will round out a rotation diverse in talent. Suhr—a little-utilized component from last season’s club—pitched 28.1 innings, started two games and posted a 3.21 ERA.

Bertrand, a finalist for the 2009 Johnny Carpenter Prep Athlete of the Year Award, is the cream of the freshman crop. She made her collegiate debut late last year during fall ball, combines a rising fastball and a venomously deceptive changeup to collect swinging strikes and strike outs. In her senior year at McMinnville High School, Bertrand struck out an incredible 280 batters in 183 innings, while posting a .61 ERA, to earn her the Gatorade Oregon player of the year award.

Despite the accolades of the pitching staff, the offense will need to score runs. The loss in power from last year’s team, however, will force Echo-Hawk to adapt new methods to produce those runs. Gone are power-hitters Jackie Heidi, whose 12 home runs paced the team last year, and left fielder Jenna Wilson who hit 13 doubles, which ranked third in the PCSC last year. Instead, the team will rely on stringing hits together to create scoring opportunities.

“We’re a little bit quicker. We rely on our speed a little bit more than last year. We did lose a little power and we’re looking at people to fill those holes,” Echo-Hawk said. “I think they’re very capable…It’s just a matter of them seeing live pitching at this level.”

Despite winning the PCSC Championship last year, Echo-Hawk looks for her club to show more consistency from game to game. With a large target on the team’s back, she believes it will be important for the squad to rise to the occasion, not only against the conference elite, but against the cellar dwellers as well.

“We tend to get up for big games,” Echo-Hawk said. “But what happens when we play the teams that aren’t Pac-10 and top 25, are we able to still compete with them…some games we play fantastic and other games we’re just an average team. In order to make that jump to the next level, you have to have consistency throughout your season.”

Though the team has lost a significant amount of power as compared to the 2009 incarnation of the squad, Echo-Hawk is confident that the newcomers will be able to fill those shoes nicely.