Young softball pitcher blossoms

The softball team, with a record of 35-9, is ranked No. 19 in the country and currently sits atop the ACC. While senior Jessica Sallinger continues to dominate from the pitcher ' s circle, the future of Tech pitching lies in sophomore Sarah Wood.

Wood has a 10-2 record with a 2.06 ERA, and she has thrown three complete games this season. She also helps the Jackets offensively, where she is hitting .246 and has a .373 on-base percentage. While it ' s not unheard of for a softball pitcher to step up to the plate, her offensive capabilities are certainly a nice asset.

Wood said that she does whatever she can to help her teammates - whether from the circle or in the batter ' s box - and she was quick to mention how the team helps her when she is pitching.

" The whole team is great. You can see that my strikeout numbers are really low. They ' re not as high as [Jessica Sallinger ' s], but that just goes to show you how incredible my defense is behind me. They ' re making the plays, and so that ' s why I ' ve been successful - just because of my teammates, " Wood said.

Wood also noted the role the catchers play during a game. " One person particular that ' s really helped me out this year is Lauren Schlechte, one of my catchers. She catches for me a lot. It switches between her and Savannah [Brown]. They both do a great job. Lauren and I really connected, and she ' s really helped me out a lot as far as talking to me on the mound. She has something about her that just calms my nerves when I ' m out there, " Wood said.

A Marietta, Ga. native, Wood started playing softball at the age of eight with her church slow-pitch softball team. By 12 she was in a fast-pitch softball league, and at 13 she started pitching. Her brother played little league baseball for a while, but other than that her family had little exposure to the diamond.

" My dad was a wrestler in high school, and my mom, she was a synchronized swimmer in high school, so [they had] no background at all. My dad knew what he knew just from common knowledge of the game, but that ' s about it, " Wood said.

By the time Wood entered high school, she had advanced as a pitcher and found her position on the diamond. The idea of playing on the college level was never on her mind when she started playing high school ball.

" It didn ' t really hit me until about the end of my freshman year of high school, that I could go play college ball - that it was definitely an option. I started working really hard and I remember always asking my dad, ' What do you think about me playing Division I softball? ' And he said, ' Sarah if you work hard enough anything is possible. ' So I took his word and worked really hard and got here, " Wood said.

Wood was a four-year letter winner at Walton High School, where she earned all-state honors her junior and senior years. She found her college home just down the road at Tech.

" It was something I really prayed about. I ' m really strong in my faith, and I just really felt that this was the place where God wanted me to be. I came down to visit, and the coaches were fabulous, and I love the campus, and I really like the team, and I thought that it was an up and coming program. So I thought that this was a good place for me to go, " Wood said.

The softball team currently leads the ACC with a 6-2 record, but they still have three tough series left in conference play against N.C. State, Virginia Tech and Maryland. Conference standings can change quickly, however, because each series features three games per weekend.

Wood is cautious and takes each game one at a time but still thinks the team is capable of achieving great things like making it to their first College World Series.

In the next couple of years the team has the potential to build on this season ' s success. " I know we ' ve got a great class coming in next year, real strong players coming in. We ' ve got a great freshman class this year, so I think we ' re just going to continue to get better, " Wood said.

The softball team hosts N.C. State for a three-game series this weekend. Tomorrow they play in a doubleheader with games scheduled for 12 and 2 p.m. Sunday ' s game is at 12 p.m. Wood usually pitches one game of the Saturday doubleheader.

This Wednesday the team travels to Athens to take on UGA for a 6 p.m. game. It will be the first time the two teams have met since the NCAA Regionals last year.