Ramos grows into solid fielder, leader
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
Kaua'i is a 20-minute plane ride and the distance from the batter to the third baseman in college softball is so short it is measured by how fast a fielder can protect her face.
Trisha Ramos overcame painful knees to become "one of the quickest third basemen ever," says UH coach Bob Coolen
But after rare trips home and playing on two bad knees for five years, University of Hawai'i third baseman Trisha Ramos now has a different perspective on distance. Lihu'e is another lifetime away and standing up straight is more of a challenge than stopping a low line drive.
It took two years to make the transition.
First, Ramos had to learn to live with O'ahu's relatively frenzied pace, and overcome her fear of living alone in a "haunted" dorm.
"I was even scared of the coach," Ramos says of her freshman year.
She compares the leap from high school to college softball to her first look at Kamehameha pitcher Kelly Kaaihili in the state tournament.
"We'd never seen anyone like her on Kaua'i," Ramos recalls. "When you play in college, it's like taking that jump again."
It helped that Dee Wisneski, a UH assistant coach, was a 1991 Waimea graduate. Ramos played Little League with Wisneski's sister. Ramos' father — and coach — played baseball with Wisneski's brother.
"I kinda idolized Dee," Ramos said. "Don't tell her, but once after a game I saw her at Dairy Queen with her boyfriend and I was telling all my teammates, 'Do you know who that is?' "
Ramos' freshman year brightened with the bonding of the 1999 team, then faded to black when the pain in her knees ended her 2000 season after six games. She had developed chondromalacia in her left knee. Eventually her right knee was also affected by the degeneration of the cartilage caused by overuse.
Without cartilage as cushion, the bones grind together. Getting up hurts. Walking stairs causes a snap, crackle and pop of pain. Ramos would crouch at third for long periods and suffer, sometimes out loud.
Surgery solved nothing and she played with pain the past two seasons, starting in all but a handful of games and hitting .260-plus. This year, pain is rare and she's batting .252, but that number goes up dramatically with runners in scoring position. She hit .455 in Hawai'i's sweep of Nevada last week.
Defensively, her fielding percentage has risen each season and her range is exceptional.
"She ended up being one of the quickest third basemen ever," UH coach Bob Coolen says. "Everyone says that. When she gets to the ball, she throws on the run probably better than any third baseman I've seen. People call her 'cat-like.' "
Ramos, the KIF Player of the Year twice for Kaua'i High, and All-America shortstop Kate Judd are the Rainbow Wahine's only seniors this season. They might be the quietest captains in team history, particularly when they're slumping.
Both provide leadership in other ways, usually with the skills that Coolen coveted out of high school. He liked Ramos' size, speed and power and pictured her at short. Her knees and Judd's skills changed his mind.
Over the years, the quiet, laid-back Ramos has developed a gift for humor that might be as valuable as any on-the-field skill.
"She knows the right time to say her lines," Wisneski says. "She always breaks the ice when there's tension. She knows just how to do it and who to do it with.
"Even with Bob."
After spending her summer working with autistic children, Ramos will graduate in the fall. Her degree is in sociology, with emphasis on deviance and social control.
"She's the right type of person for it," Wisneski says. "She's patient and caring, a good role model. She seems quiet but when it comes down to it I think she can be authoritarian and get things done. She comes from good stock. Her family is good people."
