The success senior center fielder April Setterlund has attained in her nearly four years on the Boston University softball team is no secret. Numerous times, she’s put the team on her back on the way to significant team accomplishments, including back-to-back America East championships her sophomore and junior years.
But now, in search of the team’s third straight title, she’s leaving not only a mark on the program’s résumé, but also her own name in the record books. This weekend, as the Terriers (20-12, 6-3 AE) took two out of three from University of Maryland-Baltimore County (19-14, 4-5 AE), Setterlund put up yet another impressive performance, including scoring the 151st run of her career – the most ever in a Terrier career.
“She’s a top-of-the-order kid who was brought in here to score a lot of runs, and it’s just a good career for April,” said BU coach Shawn Rychcik. “It’s been that way, and she’s probably our best offensive player ever here at the university.”
The record-breaking run came in the first inning of game one of Saturday’s doubleheader, which BU won 8-2. With BU already up 1-0, freshman third baseman Megan Volpano ripped a two-run single through the right side, allowing Setterlund to score from second.
Setterlund finished the game 3-for-3 at the plate with an RBI, a walk and two runs scored – the second of which Setterlund manufactured herself. The 2010 All-American doubled to left center to open the fifth inning, then promptly stole third and scored on an errant throw by UMBC catcher Becca Bernheimer.
Setterlund was a bit quieter in game two – she finished 1-for-2 with a walk – but so was the rest of the team, which lost 5-1. In the Terriers’ eight-inning 5-3 win on Sunday, which featured a walk-off, two-run homer from redshirt freshman first baseman Chelsea Kehr, Setterlund had a rare 0-for-4 day.
“I thought a couple times she went outside her strike zone,” Rychcik said. “She gets eight, nine, 10 pitches in a row on the outside corner, then she gets one in and it’s like ‘Holy cow, what is this? I haven’t seen this in forever.’”
The lack of seeing pitches in the strike zone is due to Setterlund’s historic junior season, during which she had a .482 batting average and a .579 on-base percentage to go with her 12 home runs, 52 RBIs and 63 runs scored. Other teams took note of her prowess at the plate and have pitched around her quite a bit since.
“She’s hitting pitches that probably aren’t even strikes. If I could videotape her I bet some of those pitches aren’t even strikes, and she’s still putting base hits on them,” Rychcik said. “That’s tough to do.”
Setterlund’s 2010 season also gave her a boost in her pursuit of other personal milestones: she is just two RBIs shy of the BU career RBI record, and needs six more home runs to break that one.
“You’re going to see numbers fall,” Rychcik said, “and she’ll probably get the RBI record before that’s out.
Home runs may be tough to come by since [opposing pitchers are] stingy on her.”
As for the runs record, Setterlund knocked 2009 graduate Shayne Lotito off the top BU all-time list.
“Shayne batted one and two for me for four years, and she ran and stole a lot, so that’s a pretty good number and a pretty good person to beat,” Rychcik said. “Whenever somebody breaks records for a program that’s been around almost 25 years, it’s got to be a pretty good number.”
When all was said and done this weekend, BU came away with two wins in three games – one win shy of what could have been a standings-boosting sweep.
“She’s a great player and I’m happy for her,” Rychcik said, “and she’d probably trade everything in for that win right there. That’s the type of player and person she is.”
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