Expectations remain as high as ever for Heather Tarr and the Washington softball program. The approach in trying to reach those lofty goals, well, that is expected to change a bit this year.
Gone is All-American ace Gabbie Plain, who graduated in 2022 as one of the most accomplished players in UW history. How the Huskies manage to replace her in the circle will define their 2023 season.
“That’s the elephant in the room,” Tarr said Tuesday, two days before the No. 14 Huskies open the season against No. 16 Duke at a tournament in Southern California. “We’ve been a very dominant pitching staff for many, many years. I don’t think we’re going to take a step back, but it’s just going to be a different way we go about it.”
Tarr enters her 19th season as the UW coach with a potent lineup almost entirely intact — including reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year Baylee Klingler — but with perhaps as much pitching uncertainty as she’s ever had. The Huskies don’t have that one established arm they know can carry them for 200 innings, and Tarr is embracing that as a potential way to reshape her thinking on pitching in general.
“Softball’s definitely evolving,” Tarr said. “There’s so much video, so much scout film out there in the world, that if you do have one of those targeted one arms, you’re almost at the mercy of that person’s success. …
“Sometimes when you go in you have all the pressure on a Gabbie Plain, and then, you know, what are we going to do behind her? Sometimes it’s a challenge. So I think we’re in a little bit of a different challenge where we don’t quite know, but we do know it’s hopeful and exciting.”
The upside, Tarr said, is the Huskies do have four pitchers — Kelley Lynch, Brooke Nelson, Lindsay Lopez and Ruby Meylan — who are capable of leading a staff. And they’ll all get a chance to prove themselves in a by-committee approach in the circle.
Tarr is even open to the idea of having established roles for pitchers, with a couple of starters, a middle reliever and a closer out of the bullpen, something you’d typically find in a major-league pitching staff.
“This year we’re looking for development … which is actually pretty exciting,” Tarr said.
Lynch is the headliner. She’s the former No. 1 national recruit who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in high school, and the 5-foot-9 senior has the most experience in the circle for UW.
In 21 appearances (16 starts) last season, she had a 3.55 earned-run average in 75 innings pitched, with 97 strikeouts and 41 walks. She held opposing batters to a team-best .201 batting average, all while playing with a finger on her pitching hand that had been surgically repaired before the 2022 season.
“The potential for Kelley Lynch is limitless,” Tarr said. “She came in with, you know, unfair (hype). A lot of people don’t know what that’s like, to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, coming into a program that has a lot of history and expectations. So she’s really grown a lot as a person. She had the injury last year … and letting her have an extra year under her belt with the injury behind her is going to be huge for her.”
Nelson is another senior with 36 career appearances (eight starts) on her résumé, and Lopez, a junior left-hander, was a standout for Arizona State before transferring to UW in the offseason. Lopez was a first-team all-Pac-12 selection at ASU last season after posting a 13-5 record with a 2.12 ERA in 112.1 innings.
Meylan is a 6-foot-1 freshman from Omaha, Nebraska, who was a high school All-American. She has the kind of “dominant characteristics,” as Tarr put it, that could make her a factor immediately this season.
The new pitching staff will be tested early. The Huskies, picked to finish third in the Pac-12 preseason coaches poll, play four games in three days this week, all leading up to a showdown on Saturday against No. 1 Oklahoma, the two-time reigning national champion.
“Our program needs that (tough schedule),” Tarr said. “It’s any time, anywhere, anyone. Let’s go.”
Klingler, a fifth-year senior won the Pac-12 Triple Crown last season, will have a chance this season to break just about every major UW offensive record.
Three other fifth-year seniors, Madison Huskey, SilentRain Espinoza and Sami Reynolds, lead a veteran group that has aspirations on a return to the Women’s College World Series.