Scarlet Daily Digest: Dare To Be Great
May 12, 2011 | Softball
May 12, 2011
By Scott Weighart, special to GoTerriers.com
In baseball or softball, the best batters are still expected to fail more often than they succeed. Most top hitters fail to get on base more than six out of every 10 at-bats.
It would be understandable for any star slugger to go up to plate feeling philosophical about the fact that a bad outcome is more likely than a good outcome.
Boston University senior April Setterlund (Torrance, Calif.) doesn't accept any of the above. Perhaps that's part of the reason why she will finish her Terrier career this spring as quite undeniably the best position player in the history of the program--and arguably the best player to ever wear the BU uniform.
Her statistics tell the story of a young woman who has been determined to pull every iota of her ability out of her body when a lesser spirit might have become complacent. As a freshman, she hit a robust .354 but with just one homer and 15 RBIs. In her second year, she raised her average to .396 with eight homers, nearly doubling her RBI total in the process.
That proved to be a mere appetizer for last season's main course, which turned out to be an ungodly junior year. In the offseason, she had to work incredibly hard to overcome a stress fracture. Unable to run as a result, she had to log countless hours on the bike to get her speed back in high gear. The investment yielded startling dividends. With just 166 at-bats in 57 games, Setterlund was fifth in the nation in batting average (.482) and on-base percentage(.579), adding 12 homers, 52 RBIs and 23 stolen bases in the process.
For those who follow major league baseball, that would project to totals of 34-148-65 in a 162-game season. "I've prided myself on getting better every year," Setterlund says. My freshman year I did well. My sophomore year I did even better. Junior year was amazing, so it was `Wow, how am I going to build on that?' So this year it's a different mentality--just trying to be good, trying to be me. It's a different approach because I can't expect myself to hit .600."
True enough, but the senior outfielder has managed to hit .427 with 9-38-27 totals going into this weekend's America East Softball Championship, hosted right on BU Softball Field. In addition to setting a new career high in stolen bases, she broke the all-time BU record for hits on April 30. All the while, she's had to make adjustments and counter-adjustments. Sometimes pitchers don't dare to throw her a strike. Should she take a base on balls, or swing at a pitch a few inches off the plate? It's a new level of challenge for her now, but she's stepped up to handle it.
Armed with a ready smile and an easy-going confidence off the field, Setterlund transforms in the heat of competition. "I have to be cocky when I go up to bat," she admits. "I can't have any doubts."
Asked about her thought process at the plate, she has to laugh at herself a little. "It's so bad! It's: `I dare you to throw a strike. I dare you.' That's my mentality going into it: I'm going to hit this ball really hard and really well. That confidence of `fake it until you make it' is very useful. If you believe you're going to get struck out, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Coach Shawn Rychcik marvels at her high standards. "She's a pretty intense person, especially when she gets on the softball field," he says. "There's a side of her that's a very intense competitor, very demanding of herself. You see it mostly when she makes a mistake or doesn't get a hit. She expects every time to get a hit, and she's rarely satisfied with a performance: It's `I should get three hits in a game... Why wouldn't I?'
"Off the field, she's just like everybody else. She's very unassuming and just tries to downplay everything. She's careful to not try to push people to be her. She's been a great teammate here; it's never just about her."
In keeping with that, Setterlund says that the stat numbers she loves to pile up the most are RBIs. "That's the most fun because that's what really counts--runs scoring. At one point, Erica [Casacci of Plantation, Fla.] was ranked high in the NCAA in runs, and that was really exciting. I got to bat her in, but she had to be on base to do it. I love that team part of it."
Likewise, her favorite memory from a fantastic Terrier career has nothing to do with one of her own accomplishments. It was when the 5'2 Casacci hit a long fly that hit the top of the wall before going over last year in a big playoff game. "We have a vertical jump test with our strength coach and we all would've broken our personal record when the ball hit the top of the fence and went over!"
Now Setterlund faces her last postseason before ending her formidable NCAA career. "I'm okay with retiring. My body's going to break down if I continue at this level of competition."
In fact, playing with pain has motivated her to greater heights. "I've realized my body doesn't want to do poorly," she says, laughing. "If I foul off a ball, something hurts." Last year the top of her hand hurt whenever she failed to make great contact. Her reaction: "Well, I'm just going to hit every ball really well! If you whiff on a ball, it hurts your back. You just want to hit every ball!"
Sometime in the near future, she will take one last swing as a Terrier, leaving her more time to reflect on her legacy as a student-athlete. "It's exciting, but at the same time I know the program's building, so I hope I'm just a step toward getting better players and making it a better program. There are girls on the team who could break those records, and that's kind of exciting. I hope my records do get broken because that would mean the program's betting better."
In the meantime, where does she stand against the legendary Audrey West, who still holds most of the program's pitching records? In some ways, making the comparison might be like determining whether Bob Gibson or Albert Pujols was a superior member of the St. Louis Cardinals. Different positions and eras make for a difficult choice.
"I never saw Audrey West play" Rychcik says. "Audrey West was our other All-American. She led the country in strikeouts and ERA: Different era, softball wasn't as big [as a sport], the game itself was different. I don't know. April's the best position player. I've heard great stories about how good Audrey was. I'm a little blind about Audrey West, but April's been able to do it all at a high level.
"She runs, fields, steal bases, scores runs, hits home runs--the complete package of offense and defense."
Perhaps we'll have to settle for a compromise. In their later years, Joe Dimaggio described Ted Williams as the all-time best hitter in baseball. In turn, Williams said that Dimaggio was the best all-around player ever. Likewise, we can say that West was the all-time best BU pitcher ever, while Setterlund was the best all-around player.
So next year the refrain may have to be, "Where have you gone, April Setterlund?"
