Long Beach State University Athletics
Turner: A Game She Can Count On
3/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Softball
March 11, 2008
LONG BEACH The softball field, with its red clay and pitcher's circle drawn in white chalk, has been Brooke Turner's much-needed constant. The diamond doesn't change, even when life does.
When her grandmother was hospitalized more than a year ago, Turner, the former Kennedy High All-America pitcher leaned on the game for comfort. Winning soothed the worry.
When she arrived at Long Beach State as a freshman last fall, Turner turned to softball for confidence. Success has softened the transition from high school to college.
"I was expecting this huge change when I got to college and was thinking that I would struggle, maybe get beat up a lot more," said Turner, 18, of Buena Park, the Big West Pitcher of the Week for the first three weeks of this new season. "But not much has changed because the game is still the game."
Turner, the 5-foot-11 rookie, has shown the poise of a veteran, having opened her career with a 10-3 record, seven shutout victories and the Big West Conference's best ERA of 0.47. Her windmill is a big reason why the 49ers are 15-8 and receiving votes in the national softball polls.
They have not yet made the top 25, but with Turner in the circle, they have defeated ranked opponents Hawaii -- twice -- and Florida. She carried the 49ers to one swing of upsetting No. 2 UCLA on Sunday, but she surrendered Samantha Camasu's line drive single that scored the winning run in Bruins' 1-0 eighth-inning victory by international tiebreaker.
"I trusted my game," said the right hander, who while at Kennedy, was The Register's Orange County Player of the Year for her final two seasons. "I've just relied on what I knew I could do and listened to the people around me."
Her older sister, Michelle Turner, a former Big West Pitcher of the Year at Long Beach State, told her about how the more experienced college hitters are poised to make young pitcher pay for their mistakes.
Pitching coach Stephanie Swenson, who played at UCLA, started to get Turner to think more about using her legs to add power to her pitches. Catcher Brooke LeSage, a senior, called Turner's pitches and assured the freshman, "You can shake me off if you want."
"I've only done it a couple times," said Turner, kicking up her flip-flops Monday and showing off her toenails painted in the familiar Kennedy High green. "I don't like to shake up too many things." Before every inning, Turner still slides her cleats across the dirt, raking the circle free of any other pitcher's footprints. She did this through four seasons at Kennedy and continues the routine at Long Beach State, where she already has left her mark.
In her 49ers debut on Feb. 9, she set a school record with 15 strikeouts in the 6-0 victory over San Diego. On Feb. 27, she topped her own record, striking out 16 to hand fifth-ranked Florida its first defeat of the season in the 49ers' 2-1 upset of the Gators in 10 innings.
Through 90 innings, she has allowed 52 hits, 18 walks and eight runs, six of them earned. She has 107 strikeouts in 13 complete games, and all three of her losses have been by scores of 1-0. Sunday's loss to by UCLA ended her 45-inning shutout streak, just six innings short of tying another school record.
"That was my toughest loss so far," said Turner, who will start against this weekend in the San Diego State Tournament. "As hard as it was to lose, we're proud and learning that we can hold our own against some of the best teams."
This young season has shown Turner she can hold her own in the college circle. The most challenging parts of her new life unfold outside the game -- in the 15-units of classes she is taking and the 15-hour days she logs from the morning alarm to class, to pitching practice, to team practice, to weightlifting, to study hall and finally to bed, "all to do it all over again the next day," she said, with a sigh. The campus still feels as new to her as the black and gold 49ers No. 6 uniform she now wears. But her coaches and teammates, once strangers, are her closest friends.
They have become familiar quickly, thanks to the softball, the game she can count on.
