The UH-Hilo softball team’s opponent, DePauw, welcomed the warm weather and Aloha spirit on Wednesday, about 4,226 miles from Indiana, where the temperature is 20 degrees.
It mattered little that the Vulcans split an exhibition doubleheader with the Division III Tigers, losing Game 1 4-3 and winning Game 2 11-1, at the Walter Victor complex.
But for posterity’s sake, in the first game, the Tigers beat Sara Bhatt, 4-3, who went the distance in the loss. The Vulcans couldn’t scratch much off the Tigers trio of arms Annika Garwood, Riley Magoon, and Kersten Brayton. In the second game, the Vulcans touched senior ace Cami Henry for a run in 3 2/3 innings of relief, and Maila Risdall fired a five-hitter.
“We’ll learn from this game, and figure out what we need to work on,” UHH coach Aisha Sueda said after the Game 1 loss.
Last season, Henry (24-2) led the Tigers to a 40-5 record and a third-place finish at the NCAA championships. Henry has a full ride for two more years at nearby Division I Valparaiso because of COVID-19.
“She’s going to get her MBA and masters in business administration at Valparaiso because she’s got two COVID years to make up,” DePauw coach Erica Hanrahan said. “She gets to play softball for two more years.
“She’s phenomenal. She gets a lot of swings and misses, and gets a lot of strikeouts. If she gives up a hit, she’s able to get out of it with a couple of strikeouts in a row. She throws between 62 to 64 mph, but she’s got a good rise ball and curveball and can spot her curveball. She can move those pitches to all quadrants of the zone. Her movement and location are at an elite level.”
Under Hanrahan, DePauw is 241-136 in her nine years and have qualified for the NCAA postseason seven times. The Tigers were third at the NCAA national championships last seasons and lost in the regional championship in 2019.
“We’re playing all 30 players on the team, and we have seven freshmen,” she said. “We have 10 seniors, eight juniors, and seven sophomores. We’re pretty spread out in experience, and that’s a tough thing. We’re learning to communicate well and our style of ball, which is aggressive.”
The Tigers brought 83 people, including the coach’s father, John Hanrahan, during their Hawaii trip that started January 14 against Chaminade on Oahu. All 83 people took and passed a COVID-19 test before the trip to Hawaii.
“We have about 43 parents. We have an incredible parent base. They’re just unbelievable,” said Hanrahan, who also pointed out the aloha spirit and the team’s adventures. “Your Hawaiian culture is the most kind, generous, and respectful. We’ve gotten to do hikes at Makapuu and Diamond Head. We’ve visited Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Culture Center. We did Manta Ray snorkeling and got to see the lava glow on the way here. We got to see Waikiki Beach. We had a circle bus tour to see the giant waves on the North Shore, so what more could we ask for? We’re beyond grateful to the Hawaiian people how kind, accommodating, and helpful they’ve been.”
Darin and Kristy Butcher made the trip over to support their daughter Kandra, a freshman left-hander, who didn’t play because of a leg injury. But she figures to see action as the only southpaw on the staff.
Darin Butcher found a great airline round-trip deal for under $700, which included the flight from Honolulu to Hilo. Even better for him and the rest of the Tigers is that they all avoided Hawaii’s earlier wet weather.
“The weather has been good,” said Darin Butcher, who’s a mechanical engineer. “We’ve been fortunate.”
Kandra was a second-team All State last season and was a National Honor Society member for three years at Collinsville High, about three hours away from DePauw.
Division III schools don’t offer athletic scholarships, but Kandra has a merit scholarship. DePauw had an enrollment of 1,972 students and an endowment of $692 million, according to Wikipedia.
“She’s darned good. I’m bummed she hurt her quad,” Hanrahan said. “It’s a game changer when you have a lefty pitcher who can complement against a team that has a lot of lefties. She’s going to help us a lot in ways we haven’t had in recent years.
The Tigers are staying at the Hilo Hawaiian, will drive to Kailua-Kona on Friday and fly back home from there. The Tigers will take a trip up to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the morning.
They’ve already been to Punalu’u Black Sand beach, went whale watching, and visited Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head while on Oahu.
Every four years, DePauw takes an international road trip, but Australia and New Zealand closed their borders because of COVID-19. But the Tigers had planned a Hawaii trip in 2020, so that got delayed for over a year.
“We made it a 12-day trip, and what we have is called a J term. January is between semesters 1 and 2,” Hanrahan said. “We have the fourth-most robust study abroad program. They emphasize getting out, and this counts as one of their mandatory winter terms. They get to check off a box for graduation requirements, go to Hawaii and play softball.”
Unlike DePauw, UHH has to fly to play all its away games either on Oahu or the mainland. The Tigers have bus rides to Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky and will fly to play Pomona-Pitzer, Redlands, and Chapman in California.
“We travel all the time. Our conference is in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and we have some Illinois schools,” Hanrahan said. “We try to change it up every year. In their four years, they’ve gotten to see different parts of the country and took one international trip. Hawaii is like being in another country because of the distance, topography, and culture. It is not the same as being on the mainland, and it opens their eyes and gets them to see the world in a different way. At the end of the day, we want to win a national championship, but that’s secondary to everything else that we’re building.”
Maybe best of all, the Tigers have really enjoyed the local grinds.
“I love poke. We have gone to a lot of different places and the kids and coaches, if they’re adventurous, will try something, and the parents are ‘I’ll try.’ You’ve got great good,” Hanrahan said. “The kids have liked the spam and seaweed.”
