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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, April 27,
2011
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Decorated senior Paisley still
making her mark
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Toni Paisley |
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(ECU SID image) |
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By
Bethany Bradsher
©2011 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
When Toni Paisley has
played her last softball game as a Pirate, she might just sit down on the
pitcher’s mound and refuse to leave.
“I might just have a breakdown after
that last game,” she said.
Certainly, the feeling is
mutual. Paisley will hang up her East Carolina jersey as the most accomplished pitcher
in East Carolina history. Her 112 career wins make her 27th on
the NCAA all-time record list, and the Lady Pirates still have six more
regular season games and the Conference USA Tournament, which they will host
at their new stadium.
There have been times
during Paisley’s ECU career that it seemed like a new honor was showered on
her every week. Some notable career accolades:
•
She holds all but one of ECU’s
career pitching records — pitching wins, careers, shutouts, pitching
appearances and complete games. Her 1,205 career strikeouts are 247 more
than the previous record-holder, Keli Harrell, and 710 more than the pitcher
in the third spot.
•
Paisley’s name is nearly as
ubiquitous in the Conference USA record books as in ECU’s. She holds C-USA
career records for strikeouts, wins, innings pitched and appearances.
•
She won the Conference USA
Pitcher of the Year Award in both 2009 and 2010 and was named the C-USA
Preseason Pitcher of the Year this season.
• She was named
the 2010 C-USA Tournament Most Valuable Player for her 20-strikeout
performance that led the Pirates to their first league title last spring.
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She has won the C-USA Pitcher of
the Week Award 16 times in her career.
•
In March, she was selected in
the 10th round of the National Pro Fastpitch, making her the
first Pirate to be drafted into a professional softball league.
Paisley is 26-8 this year, with 311
strikeouts, but her performances haven’t been as flashy as they were during
her past two seasons. When the season opened, Paisley was
uncharacteristically stressed because she was allowing the reality of her
senior season to weigh on her. She found her stride midseason, and in these
final games she hopes to turn that pressure into a positive, she said.
“Instead of the beginning of the season when there was more negative stress
on me, I’m trying to have more positive stress and use it just to push
myself these last few weekends and lay it all out on the line,” she said.
Another reason Paisley’s pitching hasn’t been
as dominating during her senior campaign is the sheer familiarity of her
opponents, particularly within the conference. Some C-USA batters have faced
Paisley and seen film of her so many times that they know how to hit pitches
that once seemed out of reach, said head coach Tracey Kee.
"Toni has done a very good job of keeping us
in ball games this year, especially in conference,” Kee said. “When you’re
in your senior year and everybody knows everything you have, and they’ve
seen you year after year after year, it’s a credit to herself on being able
to hold down people’s offenses and put us in a position to win."
It’s been
a little bit frustrating for Paisley when she feels like the other team’s
offense has her number, but her win totals have remained steady because she
has turned former strikeouts into opportunities for the Pirate defense to
shine.
“It’s challenging, and I like challenges,” she said. “I really just
try to focus more on spins then, and try to make a good movement pitch, and
there’s my shortstop, there’s my second baseman.”
As one of
only two seniors on a team mostly populated by freshman, Paisley has seen
enough to know that this group is hitting its stride at the right time. They
are 34-16 and 14-7 in the conference, and that success can be attributed to
steady pitching and a group of freshmen who have grown into the college game
quickly, Kee said.
“We
needed the youth to step up and they have,” she said. “They’re playing vital
positions on our team. We knew this season could have easily been spun
around, 16-34 instead of 34-16. I don’t want to say we’ve overachieved; we
knew the potential was there. It just was a matter of when would it show.”
With such
a supporting cast, and with second pitcher Faith Sutton throwing better than
she ever has as a Pirate, Paisley is poised for a strong finish. It will
undoubtedly be emotional when she and fellow senior Sissy Jimenez are
honored for Senior Day before their final regular-season home game against
Houston.
Paisley just tries not to think about the feelings
she’ll have when she steps off the mound after her final pitch.
“It
hasn’t quite hit me yet,” she said. “I don’t know when it’s going to happen,
but when it finally hits me it’s not going to be very pretty.”
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