Gophers: Hassett progresses from growing pains to going places

Gophers junior Briana Hassett was a phenomenal pitcher at Eastview High School. She set the state record for strikeouts in a single season (378) and had an ERA of 0.37 and 29 shutouts in her career. She received nearly every postseason award before graduating.

But success did not immediately follow her to the University of Minnesota, where she was 6-15 as a freshman. Fact is, Hassett was glad softball was such a low-profile sport, drawing only a few hundred to home games at Jane Sage Cowles Field.

"'At least nobody was there to see it,' she used to say when we came back to the dorm," said junior catcher Shannon Stemper, Hassett's roommate.

Hassett doesn't mind pitching in front of crowds this season. She's back baffling hitters. Minnesota (28-15, 9-7 Big Ten) is back, too, playing in the conference tournament for the first time in four seasons.

The Gophers, whose fourth-place finish was their best since finishing second in 1999, will play fifth-place Purdue (34-20, 9-9) at 11:30 a.m. Friday in the tournament quarterfinals at Northwestern in Evanston, Ill. A Gophers victory would advance them to the second semifinal at 4:30 p.m. that same day. Both games will be televised live on the Big Ten Network.

The Gophers, if they reach the title game, probably would receive an at-large bid to an NCAA regional. A conference championship would give them an automatic bid.

Hassett, a hard-throwing righthander, is 20-7 with 263 strikeouts and 11 shutouts. She is 8-4 in conference games.

"I don't think I won one Big Ten game my whole freshman year," Hassett said. "I didn't do very well. I had a tough time adjusting. But I just really buckled down and said, 'Either I can quit now and live on my glory from high school, or I had to change something.'"

She struggled for a variety of reasons. In college, home plate is three feet farther away. Hitters were better. Her coaches changed her pitching mechanics.

Hassett's record improved to 11-7 as a sophomore, and she and her team have kept getting better this season.

The Gophers were 11th in the Big Ten in her freshman season and 10th her sophomore year before improving to fourth this season. The credit for the team's breakthrough, Gophers co-head coach Lisa Bernstein said, goes to solid pitching, the conference's best defense (29 errors in all games) and hitters producing throughout the lineup.

"We fight and work, scratch and claw to have a different hero every day," Bernstein said.

Hassett has done her part. Only Piper Marten, the Gophers' first-year pitching coach, has had more strikeouts in a season than Hassett's 263 in the program's 35-year history. And Hassett's 11 shutouts tie her with Marten (2003) and Steph Klaviter (1999) for the second most in one year.

"I definitely tried to teach Bri what worked well for me," said Marten, who holds six school career pitching records. "We all know Briana Hassett can throw hard and definitely has the potential of doing well. It's more her approach to each batter and each pitch of the game."

Marten has stressed that Hassett worry about what she can control, not about how umpires call balls and strikes.

Hassett's ERA has steadily dropped about a half-run yearly, from 2.69 as a freshman to 2.13 last season to 1.66 this year. As a junior, she has struck out at least 10 hitters in 10 of her 24 starts. She tied Marten's single-game school record of 17 strikeouts in a 7-0 victory over Dartmouth on Feb. 29.

Perhaps her greatest challenge will come next month. Hassett will pitch for a college all-star team in an exhibition game June 17 against the U.S. national team at Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

"We'll see if I am at all near that level," she said.

Hassett gives the Gophers a chance to win facing any college team, said an obviously biased Stemper.

"We're practically like sisters," Hassett said of Stemper. The two have been roommates throughout their college careers, first in a dormitory, now in an apartment.

They were the first two softball players at the university admitted as freshmen to the prestigious Carlson School of Management. They take some of the same core classes.

"Whatever I say, [Briana] tends to believe," Stemper said.

So sometimes when Stemper stops a game to visit Hassett in the circle, it's for a simple pep talk: 'Hey, you are great. Just do it.'"

Seems to be working.