Rutherford Times

You could hear the *thwack* of the softball hitting the catcher's mitt before you left the parking lot across the street of the Middle Tennessee softball field before practice on Tuesday afternoon.  

Practice wouldn't start for another 30 minutes, but the Blue Raider pitching staff was already hard at work, as new pitching coach Helen Peña moved the dummy batter and plate around to simulate different types of hitters.  

"Timing of our break," Peña later explained what was going on with the bullpens. "What does a lefty slapper, who's up in the box, catching that break out front, look like vs a righty power hitter that's back in the box, making us throw an extra foot and a half?"  

A nuanced focus for bullpens to be sure, after a weekend where Peña's staff was key to MTSU winning their final four games of the weekend at UC Riverside's season opening tournament, posting a 2.47 ERA as a staff while striking out 22 opponents across five games, posting a 4-1 record as a staff. But a focus that fits the mindset Peña has worked to instill in her pitchers since arriving to MTSU from Memphis this offseason.  

How can you win the next pitch?  

"The hardest part of playing and pitching in general is how to stay present when things aren't going your way," Peña said. "To stay truly one pitch at a time takes a lot of mental strength and grit and experience and competitiveness, to where you're not allowing yourself to respond to the negatives that just happened."  

Building up that mental toughness was the focus of Peña's work this offseason with the Blue Raiders, more than any physical tweaks that her staff might've needed after the 2022 season, after Peña joined the MTSU coaching staff from the University of Memphis for the 2023 season. So much of pitching relies on players having confidence in themselves and short memories in-game, a constant battle of needing to remember enough to make adjustments, but not so much that remembering the past becomes overwhelming and inhibits your performance.  

That mental focus in training stood out immediately to Kamryn Carcich (Car-sich), who joined the Blue Raiders from Murray State this offseason. The Ocean Springs, Miss. native pitched a shutout against Montana last weekend in addition to earning a pair of saves, throwing 14 of the team's 34 innings that weekend, followed closely by freshman Paige Connors, who pitched well (2-0, 1.80 ERA) across 11.2 innings for her Blue Raider debut. 

"There have been times where the physicality's have definitely overplayed the mental part of the game," Carcich said of pitching coaching during her softball career. "We've really worked on mentality, more than physical attributes of pitching, which really helps during the game." 

That mental toughness was huge in California, where MTSU needed level heads in the circle to overcome 11 errors on a dry field that was not in mid-season form, as well as helping keep the Blue Raiders in the game long enough to spark a comeback, which was needed in two of MTSU's four wins on the weekend.  

It shows up in moments like Gretchen Mead, the staff's veteran leader and the team's only senior, entering the circle down 3-1 to Fresno State in the bottom of the sixth with the bases loaded, then walking in a run with her first batter, before calmly getting three straight outs to keep her team in the game. The Blue Raiders would score four in the top of the seventh, three coming on an Ainsley Blevins home run, to take the lead 5-4, a score that ended up being final when Carcich reentered the circle after giving up two runs earlier in the game to earn the save with a hitless seventh inning.  

That ability to respond to adversity is what stuck with Peña over the weekend as her team was getting back to work this week at practice.  

"They showed their ability to compete and stay present, stay one pitch at a time," Peña said. "That's really their job, to keep us close enough to where the team has a chance to either win it or to come back. And they did a great job of that."  

The competition gets better this weekend in Florida, with pairs of games against Florida Gulf Coast and Boston College and a single game against Lipscomb ahead of the Blue Raiders in Fort Meyers, Fla. But days like Tuesday, when the staff put in hard work in the bullpen prior to practice even starting in earnest, clearly gave Peña even more confidence in her team.  

"They truly have a desire to better themselves," Peña said. "I think in this game, especially at the D-I level, that can be hard. Because a lot of the times, you can be thinking about negative things...They truly want to be better today than they were yesterday. They're putting in that work that's going to show up on the field."  

For Carcich, the hot start in the circle has been exciting for the transfer. And a culmination of what drew her to become a Blue Raider.  

"I love the atmosphere of this team," Carcich said. "I'm so excited for this new beginning that we had."

Original source can be found here