Despite a 42-0 start to her Florida softball career, the number 42 represents a challenge more so than an accomplishment for Stephanie Brombacher.
That’s because the junior pitcher is now tasked with replacing the graduated Stacey Nelson, who wore the number 42 for the duration of her iconic career.
Last season, Nelson posted a 41-5 record with a 0.61 ERA as the Gators made it all the way to the finals of the Women’s College World Series before falling to Washington.
But now, Nelson and her 15 UF pitching records are gone, and Brombacher is charged with leading what is still an extremely talented lineup back to the finals.
While the focus is primarily on replacing the best pitcher in team history, Brombacher and the rest of the Gators know that the ultimate goal is to not only match, but also improve upon, the performance of their predecessors by bringing the program its first-ever national championship.
Championship experience
It’s hard to argue with 42-0, but plenty of people have tried.
Detractors point to matchups against the adversary’s number two pitcher, or to games with some of the Gators’ lighter foes. They cite the fact that Brombacher only pitched four of the team’s 34 WCWS innings, showing just how seemingly untested she is against top flight opponents.
But coach Tim Walton and the rest of the team know this was merely a product of how good Nelson was and take nothing away from Brombacher’s accomplishments.
In fact, as Walton describes it, Brombacher oftentimes had the tougher end of the deal.
“A lot of times opponents would throw their No. 1 in Game 2 cause they knew Stacey was getting Game 1 and Game 3,” Walton said.
As far as the level of competition is concerned, Brombacher’s five innings of one-run ball in a win against then-No. 4 Alabama alleviated any concerns among the squad about how she’ll fare against the nation’s toughest teams.
“She hasn’t even lost a game, of course she’s going to be fine,” senior outfielder Francesca Enea said. “She’s an amazing pitcher and an awesome person.”
Few people who have known Brombacher for her entire career have any concerns about her ability to handle big time situations.
That’s because she has been playing on championship teams against the nation’s best players since her freshman year in high school, when she and longtime battery mate Tiffany DeFelice helped Plantation American Heritage High take home their first of two consecutive Class 3A state championships.
“I think it gets you ready for championship situations, and you know those ball games are always going to be really close,” DeFelice said. “Those are gonna be 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 games, so I think you learn that basically the team that makes the first mistake is probably going to lose it.”
After her freshman year at UF, Brombacher once again joined the Gold Coast Hurricanes, the travel team she’d been playing with for the previous four years under Marty Cooper, who was also the coach at American Heritage.
And once again, Brombacher won a championship. Only this time it was the Amateur Softball Association’s 18U Gold Championship, by far her biggest yet.
“Just getting that experience under my belt and winning a big-time national championship for amateur was a great experience,” Brombacher said.
Brombacher started and won six of the team's seven games and was dominant every step of the way, shutting out her opponents in multiple contests.
Brombacher’s performances have been more than enough to convince Cooper she’ll have success as the No. 1 starter at UF.
“All those are pressure situations, pitching under pressure, trying to win the final game and trying to win the championship,” Cooper said. “She also won the Pony championship, too. She’s somebody that can win the big game, and playing at the University of Florida, she has many big games, and that past experience will clearly help her perform well under those conditions. ”
Replacing the best
Those who have gotten to know Brombacher closely point to both her demeanor and her work ethic as the primary reasons for her success, and are entirely convinced those attributes will help her to another successful season in 2010.
“Everybody always says it’s about what you do when nobody is watching, and she’s one of those people,” DeFelice said. “She’ll go out and run on the weekends when no one is telling her to…it’s definitely one of those things where she’s working when no one is watching.”
It seems the days of her work going unnoticed are behind her, as Brombacher recently earned a spot on the 2010 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Preseason Watch List.
The intensity with which Brombacher strives to improve her game, and the effect it can have on a team, was not overlooked by her former coach either.
“Stephanie Brombacher is the real deal,” Cooper said. “She is as good as it gets. I haven’t had anybody any better than her as a player, as a person, as somebody that’s a teammate, or as somebody that comes out every day. She’s not selfish, she works for the team. All of the hard work that she does is her doing her part to help the team win.”
And while Brombacher’s actions are not selfishly motivated, they definitely have the potential to yield some high-profile individual accolades.
Not only was she was named to the Preseason All-Southeastern Conference team after earning a spot on the second team last year, but she’ll also have an outside shot at some highly prestigious career marks if she can continue to play at her current level.
“I told her she has to beat all my records,” Nelson said.
As things presently stand, Brombacher has a long way to go before she reaches that level of greatness.
She would need to win 95 more games, lower her ERA 0.12 points, record 42 more shutouts, and log 804 more strikeouts to pass Nelson for tops in Florida history in each of those categories.
But if Nelson could become as dominant as she was after going 48-26 over her first two seasons, then the sky is the limit for Brombacher.
“I think she can do it,” Nelson said.
Familiar partner
As Brombacher has advanced through Pony leagues, through high school, through amateurs, and now all the way up to being the full-time starter on the No. 3 college team in the nation, there have always been two constants: her infamous grunt and the girl behind the plate.
For almost as long as Brombacher has been playing competitive softball, DeFelice has been her catcher. The chemistry between the two has developed to the point where all Brombacher has to do is shake off the first pitch, and they’ll both know exactly what’s coming next.
“She kinda reads my mind,” Brombacher said. “If coach calls a pitch and I don’t want to throw it, normally, she knows exactly what I want to throw, exactly what I want to do and where I want to place it.”
Being able to communicate and make changes on the fly is key for a pitcher like Brombacher, whose game is predicated on placement and finesse rather than pure power.
In addition to these strategic decisions, Brombacher and DeFelice have been able to help each other keep their mechanics sharp.
“I used to go to her pitching lessons, so I picked up on certain things,” DeFelice said. “Sometimes she’ll ask me, ‘Hey do you see this?’ Or I’ll see something and I’ll tell her. I’m not criticizing her, I’m just saying, ‘Hey, watch out for this.’ But it’s a two-way street because she can help me out with things too.”
Both pitching and catching are heavily reliant on technique and consistency, so it can be helpful to have an extra set of eyes looking for anything that’s out of place.
The real irony of the relationship is DeFelice’s ability to pick up on things as minute as a shift in shoulder position, while at the same time effortlessly tuning out what has become the signature of Brombacher’s game.
“The thing with the grunt is, I don’t even hear it anymore,” DeFelice said. “The only time I notice it is when it’s different.”
After what happened when Brombacher and DeFelice were playing in their 14-and-under league, it became pretty obvious that tuning it out and dealing with it were going to be her only two options.
“Back when we were in 14-and-unders we bet Stephanie that she couldn’t not grunt when she pitched, and, well, she did it,” DeFelice said.
“I did it for about five or six pitches,” Brombacher said. “I pulled all the muscles in my sternum and ended up in the emergency room, so now the grunt just happens.”
In the first year of the post-Nelson era, Brombacher will need to be at 100 percent for the team to have any hope of returning to the WCWS.
If she has to spend any part of the season in the ER, it will likely put the Gators' postseason chances on life support.
Seems like it would be best for UF to just let the grunts, and hopefully the wins, keep on coming.
