Softball: Princeton looks to rebound

Every member of the softball team has a word taped to the inside of her locker. For senior second baseman and co-captain Collette Abbott, that word is “camaraderie”; for senior outfielder Kelsey Quist, it’s “commitment.”

These words are daily reminders of what the fast-approaching season means to both the individual players and the team as a whole.

In some cases, they are also reminders of what the team did not achieve last year. Coming off a dominant Ivy League title victory in 2008, last year’s team sputtered to a disappointing 8-12 record in the league and finished 14-22 overall.

“[Last year] was tough. There was a lot of internal stuff that went on with the team,” senior pitcher and co-captain Jamie Lettire said. “We just didn’t have the same chemistry we had the year before ... And we didn’t take it upon ourselves to fix it.”

“I’d compare last season to hitting a home run your first at-bat and then not knowing what to do in your second at-bat, when the other team is pitching its best pitches to you,” Quist said. “Everybody last year was gunning for us because we won Ivies, and I guess we underestimated our competition a little bit.”

Nevertheless, the team has been eager to put last season’s troubles to rest and have a fresh start to the new season.

“We went back to the drawing board,” head coach Trina Salcido said. “The important thing is that we focus on the little things and get back to playing the game, loving the game and getting better at the game every day.”

Addressing the team’s chemistry issues has meant coming to the game with a new approach and a new attitude.

“We’re doing a lot more team-building exercises and hanging out more as a group,” Salcido said. “We’ve taken much more of a relaxed approach.

Obviously, it’s still a lot of hard work, but it’s also much more fun. We know we have the talent.”

Players on the team have already started to notice the difference.

“Before the season’s even started, people are just really happy,” Abbott said. “The team has meshed really well, and the chemistry’s really great. It’s been a totally different feel the whole year, which makes me really optimistic for the season.”

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Perhaps the most important change has been the team’s seven new freshman recruits, who have contributed an enormous amount of energy to the squad.

“Mostly, they just bring a ton of energy to the team,” Lettire said. “They’re very much no nonsense. They’re here to play softball, they love it, and they’re not going to let anything else get in the way.”

While the team’s four seniors have served as leaders and mentors for the large group of freshmen, Salcido said, the groups are mutually beneficial to each other.

“[The freshmen’s] love of the game is very pure ... They’re excited every day, and that excitement has kind of reminded the older girls of their freshman year.”

Quist agreed. “They remind us why we’re here and why we’re playing,” she said. “They bring us back to our freshman year and us being so excited to get out there and lay our first game …

It makes the mood a little more relaxed and comfortable, and it also forces us as leaders to be there and instill confidence in them — and in doing that, it instills confidence in ourselves.”

The addition of freshman pitchers Liza Kuhn and Alex Peyton should be especially helpful to a team that had just two pitchers, Lettire and junior Michelle Tolfa, on the roster last year.

“Having two pitchers carry the load for an entire season was incredibly difficult. Throwing two freshman pitchers who nobody has seen yet will definitely help us out this year,” Quist said.

The Tigers are also relishing their new underdog status and the lack of external pressure that comes with it.

“I think the attitude’s going to be a lot more fun-loving this year. Last year, we were so tense, and every game we lost just added more negative attitudes, because we were just so defeated the whole season. Being a senior makes you want this season to be your best, your last, the most fun season of all,” Quist said.

The team is already looking forward to vanquishing some of its Ivy foes — including Cornell, which swept the team in its last four-game series of the season.

“Beating [Cornell] sophomore year was the coolest thing, because they are basically our rivals. We really respect them as a team and as individuals, but it’s just really fun to beat Cornell, so we’re definitely looking forward to that,” Lettire said.

Before getting into the Ivy season, though, the Tigers will face a tough slate of games leading up to their home opener against Rutgers on March 27. The team travels down to Maryland this weekend for five games and then will go out to California to face some of the nation’s top teams during spring break.

“Of course we’re excited to get into the Ivies, but we have many games before that,” Salcido said. “We’re just going to take the season one game at a time.”

While the season’s early matchups are challenging ones for the Tigers, they often prove tremendously helpful to the team.

“We like to challenge ourselves, even if that means starting with a losing record,” Salcido said. “It definitely benefits us to play top teams, because we can look to them to see what they’re doing to be successful and how we can institute that in our program.”

While the team is facing a tough trip back to the top of the Ivy League, Abbott says it has just two goals: “To have fun and to win. They go hand in hand … I don’t see a better time than now to win Ivies.”