ASU softball's lefty hurler, Giselle "G" Juarez, has had a breakout season. She's overcome lots of obstacles to get to where she is. Head Coach Trisha Ford talks about Juarez, who followed Ford from Fresno State to ASU prior to the 2017 season.
Chris Gleason - Reporter:
ASU sophomore Giselle Juarez, or “G” for short, was named the USA Softball Division 1 national pitcher of the week on March 27, the first Sun Devil recognized for the honor in four years.
Trisha Ford - ASU Softball Head Coach:
She's just- she wants the ball, she's been dominating, just fantastic you know.
Gleason:
Juarez has come a long way after suffering a pair of hip injuries over the past two years that ultimately led her to getting surgery in August 2017.
Ford:
For her to achieve what she wants to achieve here, she knew that she had to do it again and go through all that pain and that rehab. But she also knew that she had to make a decision to kind of, you know, do some things differently.
Gleason:
One of those things has been an increased focus on mechanics, which was most evident during her streak of 79 scoreless innings, only broken in the fifth inning of Saturday’s 9-1 win over North Dakota State.
Ford:
She had some things that were not helping that hip stabilization, so we really sat down with our sports staff. So, the strength and conditioning, our trainer, myself and we really sat down and dissected her motion, and then came up with a game plan of how to kind of stabilize it, worked on her core, we did some tweaking with her hip placement and kind of angles at when she gets to toe-touch in her pitching motion.
Gleason:
Juarez’s breakthrough with the Sun Devils almost never happened, as she initially committed to Fresno State. But the Glendale native returned home after Ford took the head coaching job at ASU. But as she explains, transferring wasn’t an easy process.
Ford:
So they did not release her, then she went through an appeal, I believe that didn't go through either, but then Fresno State decided to go ahead and release her. So at any point in time once Fresno said "Yes, we'll release her," everything was good to go.
Gleason:
But now, Ford can only marvel at what her sophomore lefty has accomplished.
Reporter Question - Josh Schaefer:
What can you say about the way that "G" performed this past week?
Ford:
Yeah, lights out.
Gleason - Reporter:
Reporting for The State Press, I’m Chris Gleason.
Reach the reporter at ccgleaso@asu.edu or follow @realchrisgleas1 on Twitter.
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