Australians power UH softball team
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
What exactly is in that vegemite?
The University of Hawai'i has been pounding the door of the NCAA Softball Championship with a trio of gritty pitchers and a lineup-full of free swingers. No one pounds harder than Australians Kate Judd and Stacey Porter.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
Since April Fool's Day, the Wahine's fourth and fifth batters have been hitting .353, with 31 RBIs and 11 homers, nearly half the team's total.
Stacey Porter, above, and Kate Judd, below, have been the big hitters for the Wahine this season.
They have also been dangerous. It is not so much what Judd and Porter — teammates on Australia's Junior National Team — hit, but how they hit it. No Wahine has ever hit the ball harder than Porter, and when Judd turns on a pitch, it disappears quickly.
"About mid-season, I woke up and grabbed a clue, and put up a net," said UH coach Bob Coolen, who now pitches batting practice from behind a barrier. "With Kate and Stacey, the way the ball comes off the bat it sounds so solid off their bats. I started getting very nervous, wondering if I had enough reaction time.
"One time Stacey hit a ball so fast I had no reaction time. It went by my left ear and I wasn't quick enough to get out of the way because it came off the bat so fast."
Porter's late debut — she didn't get to Manoa until this semester — was not particularly promising. Struggling to adjust to a new school, country and practice regimen, she went 1-for-21. She has hit .345 since.
Last weekend, she treated San Jose State pitching as if it were, well ... Coolen. She went 5-for-11, tagging two homers into the tennis courts and scoring five runs.
"The second homer felt a bit sweeter," Porter said. "They both felt pretty good but I think the second one went a bit further.
"It's been a long time coming. I was a bit slow with the hitting at the start. Maybe all the practicing helps. I finally started seeing the ball big and kept it going. Finally."
Judd's power surge has been season-long, but suffers from rolling blackouts. She has two two-homer games — she needs one more homer to tie the season record — and a multitude of multi-hit games, but has also suffered slumps. Coolen attributed part of it to the pressure of playing shortstop — she has started 110 games her first two years — and the rest to self-doubt.
Judd agreed and admitted she hits best when she doesn't think. "But it's hard not to think, when people are telling you not to think," she said. "For me, I just get so fed up with not hitting that I go out there thinking, 'Whatever,' and start hitting again."
Wahine coaches point to the similarity in stature to help explain Porter and Judd's pure power. Porter is 6 feet and Judd nearly that tall. Their long frames provide lethal "levers" and exceptional extension. But their swings are dramatically different. Porter possesses the elusive "fast-twitch" muscles in abundance; Judd's motion is long and in slow motion by comparison.
The Wahine are hitting a WAC-best .285, with nine batters at .280 or better. Junior leadoff Natalie Gonzales has been especially prolific, hitting .348 in her first season as a starter. She is second in the WAC, to Fresno State All-American Becky Witt, in hitting and hits.
SHORT HOPS: The Wahine were fourth in the NCAA's final West regional ranking Thursday. The NCAA Softball Committee uses the ranking to help select and seed the 48-team NCAA Championship, which will be announced tomorrow. ... There are eight six-team regionals. UH coach Bob Coolen said 31 teams have bid to host regionals. ... A WAC doubleheader between Fresno State and Tulsa was postponed by rain at Tulsa, Okla., yesterday with the Bulldogs leading 2-0 in the second inning. The doubleheader will be completed today before the regularly scheduled doubleheader. If the 17th-ranked Bulldogs (13-3) sweep, they win the WAC championship and Hawai'i (16-4) needs to get an at-large invitation into the NCAA Tournament. ... Honolulu's Estee Okumura, a sophomore at University of the Pacific, was named to the Verizon Academic All-District VIII Team. Okumura has a 3.54 grade point average in Sports Science. She is now eligible for one of the three Academic All-America teams announced next month. No Wahine were selected.
