ANNA AVIK Injured ace Amanda Freed hopes
to rejoin the pitching rotation before the season ends. She has
been playing center field recently.
By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Reporter
It hurts to rip a band-aid off your arm. But that is not nearly
as bad as what Amanda Freed has been going through lately.
About four weeks ago, an MRI revealed that the muscles in her
right forearm were literally being ripped away from the bone. The
sharp, stabbing pain became too unbearable and what had originally
been diagnosed as tendinitis in February turned into something much
more serious.
After pitching at home against Washington on April 14, Freed was
completely shut down.
“I’ve never taken this much time off before,”
Freed said. “It’s hard. I’m looking for more
things to do. I obviously can’t pitch and that’s pretty
much been my life.”
Last weekend marked her return, as Freed started all three games
at Easton Field against the Oregon schools at center field. She now
sports a large piece of tape that grips her right forearm tightly,
relieving a lot of pressure from the muscle.
Before the three-week break, if Freed threw overhand the wrong
way or took an off-balance swing at the plate, there would be a bit
of pain. But the time off has helped her out.
Freed is not quite ready to re-enter the pitching circle yet.
Her progress is being judged on a day-by-day basis, and the fact
that the doctors still don’t know what’s causing the
injury isn’t helping matters.
The injury has been likened to shin splints in her forearm, but
whether the cause is overuse, a glitch in her mechanics where she
hits her hip while pitching, or a combination of those and other
factors is unknown.
Freed acquired the injury her freshman year at UCLA in 1999, the
summer before the World Games, when she was on the Blue team during
the national team’s Blue Gold Tour.
During her time with Team USA that summer, Freed never found out
what the injury really was. Then in February, the stabbing pain
returned.
About a month later, the pain leveled off and she was able to
compile a 17-3 record to go along with her 0.51 ERA in her 123
innings of work this year, her junior campaign. But when the pain
became too much to bear, she had to be shut down.
“It’s probably the most frustrating thing
she’s dealt with in her career, because I know that for me it
was,” said senior pitcher Courtney Dale, who in 2000 battled
injury before undergoing shoulder surgery last June. “But you
take on a different role as a player, and Amanda has been resting
and getting healthy, and that’s what is important.”
Freed has been pitching since age six or seven ““ pretty
much as long as she can remember. So the time off is killing her
inside.
She has tried to do anything to stay busy, including shagging
fly-balls in the outfield even though she could only throw the ball
back with her left hand. Freed even went as far as to try pitching
left-handed just so she could be in the circle for a while.
“It became kind of a goal for me to be able to throw
strikes left-handed,” Freed said. “It became fun after
a while, but it also became frustrating because I didn’t want
to do that anymore. I just wanted to throw normal.”
Although not 100 percent yet, last weekend Freed was able to
extend herself to 70 percent and is on the road to recovery. The
team only has three more weekends’ worth of games left, so
although Freed wants to push herself to get back in the circle, she
also doesn’t want to further hurt herself.
Pitching-wise, Freed is currently limited to a spectator role on
game day. Her athleticism alone allowed her to keep throwing
through the pain, but the torque she created with her curveball and
riser put so much stress on her forearm that right now Freed is
more of a coach than a pitcher.
“Since Amanda is injured, she’ll sit there when she
isn’t playing and watch me and I’ll ask her,
“˜What am I doing’ or “˜Why isn’t this
working?'” freshman pitcher Keira Goerl said.
“And she’ll totally help me.”
Freed sometimes feels embarrassed to give Goerl advice, since
she’s a teammate. She gives tips on whether Goerl is
releasing the ball too early or whether her arm is straight. Freed
even sometimes finds herself visualizing herself as the pitcher
while Goerl is in the circle.
The fact that Bruins are ranked second in the nation with a 53-4
record has helped ease some of her pain. Goerl has compiled a 24-1
record in 164 innings of work while filling in for the injured
Freed.
“It makes it a little easier to take time off when
we’re getting it done,” Freed said. “If we were
struggling a whole lot, then I’d kick myself in the back. But
we’re doing really well.”
UCLA’s chances of a ninth NCAA title should increase
dramatically, though, if Freed is able to come back to the
circle.
According to eighth-year Assistant Coach Kelly Inouye-Perez,
Freed has tremendous endurance and is the most talented pitcher on
the staff in terms of the weapons she brings ““ including her
five-pitch repertoire that includes a riser, drop ball, curveball,
screwball and probably the best change-up in college softball
today.
“I’m so thankful she’s on our team,”
Inouye-Perez said. “I know our hitters can look just as crazy
when facing Amanda. There’s not one hitter out there that is
on her change-up. It’s just wicked. Some people say it should
be illegal.”
Every player on the softball team has to play through injuries.
They do it for the love of the game, for the love of their
teammates and their sense of responsibility to the team.
According to Freed, if someone is playing hurt, and
they’re only capable of playing at 75 percent, then
you’ll see the entire 75 percent on the field.
“I wish that somebody could put on our uniform and go
through what we go through,” Freed said. “It’s so
physically and emotionally draining. You have to be tough.
It’s not like any other game; it’s not even like
baseball. And of course we’re females, and we’re not
going to charge the mound when we get hit and we don’t go out
to make people bleed, but the girls on our team are so
tough.”
None tougher than Freed herself.