Coming into the season, junior Lauren Hynes said she wouldn’t believe you if you told her she would be the Boston University softball team’s starting first baseman on Sunday, but that’s exactly how the 2015 season has unfolded.
“It would be a little unexpected,” Hynes said. “I played first base a little bit during my freshman year, but definitely came into this season expecting to be pitching, but with my injury, [it] has forced me to move over to first.”
Hynes suffered a wrist injury in the Terriers’ first half of the season that has prevented her from pitching.
She was a crucial piece for a Terrier (16-24, 7-8 Patriot League) team that made it to the NCAA Regionals in 2014. Her earned run average may not have been the lowest on the team, but for a seven-game span, Hynes was the only able-bodied pitcher left on the roster.
That meant that no matter how tired her arm was in the morning, her team needed her to pitch the whole game. Hynes finished the 2014 season with a 3.54 ERA in 152.1 innings pitched. The next highest innings pitched total on the team was then-sophomore pitcher Melanie Russell with 122.2.
In 2015, her stats, a 5.03 ERA in 64 innings, were largely worse during the beginning of the season. The reason she did not just stay sitting on the bench, like most pitchers in her situation would have done, is that Hynes was also valuable with the bat.
Last season, she batted .333 with a team-leading .488 on-base percentage, and this year, her numbers are just as good.
“Lauren has been leading us at the plate since the beginning,” said BU coach Kathryn Gleason. “She’s been dealing with the injury a little bit, but she’s just a tough out whether it’s walking or waiting ‘til she sees the right pitch. No matter where I put her in the lineup, she’s just a tough out.”
An argument can be made that Hynes is the Terriers’ most consistent presence, not only in the batter’s box, but in the infield, too.
Coming into this weekend’s series against Colgate University, Hynes was hitting .310 and continued to lead the team in on-base percentage at .442.
Those stats do not even include the extraordinary Sunday Hynes had at the plate. Going 3-for-3, she was responsible for driving in four of the Terriers’ runs, three of which she scored on a bases-clearing double in the opening inning. BU went on to win the game 9-3 and sweep the three-game weekend series.
On a BU team that struggles with errors, Hynes is a sturdy defender at first base. With just one error on the season, she totes a .990 fielding percentage, good for second on the team.
“Lauren has a pretty calm, quiet confidence to her, so wherever we tell her to go, she’ll do it and contribute wherever she can,” Gleason said. “She’s really taken over first base, and she’s played there before, so anything she can do to help the team, she will.”
Though Hynes’s stats were rough at the beginning of the season, it is clear that this Terrier squad misses her presence on the mound. The lowest ERA on the team coming into the weekend was sophomore Makinna Akers with a 3.98 mark, but Russell may have finally rediscovered her form after a brutal season so far. Russell’s ERA sat at 6.73 before the weekend, but on Sunday, she limited the Raiders (14-16, 9-6 Patriot League) to one run over five innings.
Although both Akers and Russell are hitting their stride recently, Hynes’s workhorse mentality on the mound is still something lacking from this Terrier squad, and she also commented on how much she misses the mound.
“A lot, I really want to be out there,” Hynes said. “But Makinna has stepped up. We only have two healthy pitchers in Makinna and Mel, so they’ve really had to step up here. We came in with four pitchers, and now we have two, so it’s been a tough situation, but they’ve been pitching really well.”
For now, she will continue to rack up hits and try to help another Terrier squad reach the NCAA Tournament. With seven wins in a row, Hynes said the team has begun to resemble the last BU team to get there.
“We’ve had glimpses of it,” Hynes said. “We’re really hitting our stride right now. We still have a couple weekends to go, so I’m really confident in us.”
