By Brendan Kurie, The Standard-Times (New Bedford)
BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Kacie Carvalho wasn't hitting so well until she added more time in the cage. A familiar tale, shared by just about every softball — or baseball — player out there.
The only difference was, Carvalho traveled 28 miles to find her groove at the plate.
The 2015 Fairhaven grad had already overcome the odds by making the Bridgewater State softball team as a walk-on. But she played sparingly through the first two-thirds of the season, and after 24 games she was hitting just .267 in a meager 15 at-bats.
"I was struggling a little with hitting," said the freshman, who hit .544 as a senior for the Blue Devils. "I don't think anything was wrong with my swing. I play for the team more than I play for myself, and I felt like I was letting everyone down when I went in and I wasn't hitting."
So she drove back down to the SouthCoast and visited with Bishop Stang softball coach Dan Syliva at The Cage in Marion. He took a look at a few swings and determined her issues were more mental than physical.
"He calmed me down and said, 'You know how to do this,'" Carvalho said. "He told me 'Let your body go through the motion.'"
Carvalho returned to the Bears and over the final 12 games swung a bat hotter than a blowtorch, hitting .542 over her final 35 at-bats, with seven RBIs, eight runs and a steal.
"I've just been more confident at the plate," she said.
That confidence helped her earn back-to-back MASCAC Rookie of the Week awards, followed shortly by a spot on the All-Conference first team.
"I was so excited," said Carvalho, who finished the season hitting .460/.509/.620 with 10 RBIs, 12 runs and two steals. "I felt so honored. I know there's a lot of girls who are working hard right now, so I was very thankful."
As a leadoff hitter and center fielder, Carvalho said she improved her game by working on diving and sliding in the outfield.
"I'm pretty fast, so I never had to dive before," she said. "They pushed me out of my comfort zone and they taught me to slide, never give up and go all out."
Her improvement over the course of the season helped the Bears finish the regular season 23-13 and earn the No. 2 seed in the MASCAC Tournament.
"We have high hopes," Carvalho said before BSU opened tournament play with a 6-2 quarterfinal win over Westfield State on Friday. "I think our goal is to keep playing the way we've been playing the past couple of games. We've been super supportive and excited and just playing our game. At the beginning of the season, we had a little trouble getting into the groove, but once we got in it, there's no stopping us."
The crazy part is Carvalho wasn't even guaranteed a spot on the team until this spring. She applied to 11 schools and got into all of them. While she would have had a secured spot at other schools, she opted to attend BSU and walk-on to the softball team.
"Originally, I wanted to go to a small school, but I had a lot of friends coming here and I had some family here," she said.
To make the team, she had to battle through three rounds of cuts, the first after a week of tryouts, the second after a fall ball tournament and the third in the spring.
"I was so excited," Carvalho said of the moment she made the team. "I called my dad (Kenny) first off. He was so excited."
When she's not figuring out her swing or perfecting her center field dive, Carvalho is a biology major who for many years considered being a pediatrician, but recently is considering becoming a nurse practitioner.
There's still lots to be finalized in Carvalho's collegiate career, which really began just a dozen or so games ago.
"I hope that we keep doing as well as we have been as a team," she said of the future. "I hope, personally, I can keep up my hard work and keep focused and see the big picture. Some girls lose the love of the game, and I hope I always love the game."