Junior pitcher Morgan Anderson has always had a love for the sport of softball. She said that it has been her favorite sport all her life because it is a team sport.
“It has always been one of my favorite sports, and I feel like it is more of a team sport because you need the offense and defense and you can’t have one over the other,” Anderson said. “So I feel like the team has to be together and I love how close teams get through softball.”
Anderson said her favorite time during her career as a softball player is during her junior year in high school, when her team was not having the most success.
“We had a really bad season, but we made it into sectionals and we ended up beating the No. 1 seed team, we ended up losing, but beating that team and being like ‘oh yeah we are a really good team,’ it felt good,” Anderson said.
When choosing to come to Plattsburgh, Anderson knew she wanted to come here from her first visit. She said she felt a connection to the campus. She said she likes the team and the size of the campus.
“I visited once and stayed with the team, had a great time with them and I felt like I really could fit in with the team and it wasn’t going to be awkward trying to find friends on the team, so they were a big part of me wanting to come here,” Anderson said. “Walking around the school, I loved how close everything was, it wasn’t a far walk to get to class, so I loved everything about it.”
Head coach Stephanie Conroy said she sees Anderson as a unique person, and that is one of the main reasons she decided to recruit her to the PSUC softball team.
To view more videos, visit our Multimedia page.She said she decided to bring her in because she has a unique style of pitching.“She has changed a little bit over the three years she has been here,” Conroy said, “but she had a lot of off-speed stuff and a lot of movement on her ball which was the main attraction to her as a pitcher.”
Morgan said that she sees herself as a junk-ball pitcher or a pitcher, who stays away from her fastball and uses mostly off-speed pitches. She said one of her favorite things to do is mess up the batter by moving the ball around the plate and keeping them off- balance.
For teammates, Anderson is seen as the type of person that everyone looks to when they need to be cheered up.
“She’s very happy-go-lucky and she is the person I always go to when I have problems personally,” freshman outfielder Dominique Zummo said. “She is just a great person.”
Senior pitcher Kristin Fisher said that she sees Anderson as the type of person teammates can go to when they need help. She said that she is a loyal and caring person, who if you ask her, will do anything to help people and be happy to do it.
Anderson said one of her favorite things about being on the PSUC is being to travel with the team to Florida and faraway places because it helps the team to bond. She said when they go to Florida, they are there for 10 days and there is no escaping each other, so they create a family-like bond.
She said that being able to be on eight-hour bus rides with the team to Buffalo and Fredonia gives the team more time to bond than any other.
On the field, Anderson has improved in her three years and become one of the top pitchers on the team.
“I think that she has been through a lot in the past couple of years and just seeing the transformation of her being an impact for us this year from last year especially the difference in just how we are playing and the competitiveness of our team and just how she is able to be a part of that and it is nice to see she has been a really big asset in the circle in that aspect,” Conroy said. “Her ERA gets lower every single year and she is doing a great job and she is investing in whatever changes we have to throw at her and I am just excited to see her progressing with progression of the team.”
Next year, in Anderson’s final season, she said the team will be a stronger unit because the freshmen who are here now and playing almost every day are getting experience.
She said the first year has given the freshmen the chance to learn how to play at the college level.
“I feel like next year they are not going to have the first year jitters,” Anderson said. “They are going to know what to expect with the weather and the other teams and the competition level, so I feel like next year is going to be really, really good.”
Email Nick Topping at sports@cardinalpointsonline.com
