Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 23, 1994 TAG: 9405230027
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Relax. Get ahead in the count. Don't get down on yourself. And don't throw a fastball, because it isn't your best pitch.
Grove coaxed a comeback grounder for Bridgewater State's third out in the sixth. The Trenton State senior needed a similar escape in the seventh to finish a four-game sweep of one-run games en route to the Lions' fifth national championship in 11 years.
After the Lions' 6-5 victory, Grove stood in center field at Salem's Moyer Sports Complex, gripping one of the two NCAA title trophies her school won Sunday. (The other came in women's lacrosse.)
"It's kind of heavy," she said of the Lions' second softball trophy in three years.
The ball felt the same in the late innings to the dark-haired right-hander. Before Grove's third consecutive start, Dr. June Walker, the Trenton coach, admitted Grove was tired.
"I iced it up three times [Saturday]," Grove said of her pitching arm. "I was tired. I didn't know how much longer I'd be out there. Once it was tied, I thought it was very iffy."
Walker stuck with Grove for Sunday's start because of her off-speed pitches. She left Grove in the game after the Bears had wiped out a four-run deficit for the same reason.
"It was down to one batter, one hit, one run," Walker said. "One more, and we were going to make a change. We had both of our other pitchers [Becky Koenig and Karen Stefanowicz] warmed up and ready."
When Grove reached back, it wasn't with her arm. It was with her head. That was no surprise. She may have finished with a 24-1 season and 61-5 career - an NCAA record for winning percentage - but her most impressive career number is 3.87.
That's her GPA, not her ERA.
Grove will graduate in December with a degree in physical therapy. She plans to apply to graduate school, and getting accepted should be much easier than winning Sunday's game.
One of only three seniors from a 48-4 season that added to Division III's softball dynasty, Grove will return to the Lions next season as their pitching coach. Walker told her the job was hers before Christmas.
She certainly will be able to say she's been there. In her four seasons on the mound, the Lions were 175-21, including victories in 27 of their past 28 games after back-to-back losses to New Jersey Athletic Conference rival and fellow NCAA Tournament participant Rowan.
"Battling back to win the NCAA after losing our conference makes it sweeter," said Grove, who finished the season with a 1.85 earned run average but didn't make any of the three All-America teams. "Being an All-American [which she was last year] wasn't important to me."
That's because she was a GTE Academic All-American for the third consecutive year. She has been a volunteer for 10 years with a muscular dystrophy telethon and for Wheelchair Olympics and Special Olympics. She works in her school's Disabled Children's Aquatic Program and in the DWI Task Force in her hometown of Hopatcong, N.J.
Grove, 22, should be a poster girl for Division III athletics.
"Softball has been very important to me," she said. "It isn't my life. I'll play this summer in our local fast-pitch league. I used to play major fast-pitch for a traveling team, but I had no social life.
"We traveled every weekend. It got to where between playing and practicing, I didn't have time for anything else."
Grove got a late start in her sport. She didn't try windmill-style pitching until the 10th grade. As a Trenton State freshman, "I really wasn't ready to play at this level," she said. "I started two games and pitched some in relief. The coaches worked with me."
However, Grove had something not many college softball pitchers do. In addition to a fastball, a riser, a drop and an out-curve, she also has an in-curve, or screwball.
"Erine thinks that's her best pitch," Walker said. "She's comfortable with it. And junk was what we needed here."
In her hotel room at night on her last weekend as a college softball player, Grove thought not about how her career would end but that it would end.
"It's the end of four years of hard work," Grove said. "I didn't dwell on it, but thinking about it being over soon, it was kind of sad."
Grove admitted it "wasn't the best day I've had," but the only time she was down was when her teammates smothered her on the mound after the last out.
And now Grove has one other task this summer. She can junk her old resume, impressive as it is. The revision should say "NCAA champion."
Again.
\ Write to Jack Bogaczyk at the Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, 24010.
by CNB