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Jolie Gustave toed the rubber in one of the most high-pressure situations in softball: Full count. Bases loaded. Two outs. Bottom of the ninth. A one-run lead. She was facing Norco (California) High School, the defending national champions and the No. 1-ranked team in the country, in March 2020. Norco’s cleanup hitter was in the box.

She was on the mound in Bullhead, Arizona, pitching in front of a packed crowd in the Tournament of Champions. She struck out the batter with a swing and a miss on a ball well outside the strike zone. For nearly a year, she had tried to convince Sean Brashear, Mater Dei’s (California) first-year head coach, that she should be in the circle during big games.

“She wanted to make sure that I knew and everyone knew that she was that good and deserved to have the ball in her hand,” Brashear said.

That pitch was the last of Gustave’s high school career — her senior season was canceled a week later. Now, she finds herself, along with fellow freshman Lindsey Hendrix, as a member of Syracuse’s pitching rotation behind Alexa Romero and Kaia Oliver. The two made their first career appearances on Feb. 20 against UNC, combining for 3 2/3 innings of relief for Romero.

In 2018, Hendrix pitched in the Premier Girls Fastpitch Championship in California against some of the top teams in the nation. Then-Dartmouth head coach Shannon Doepking sat next to Hendrix’s dad, Rich. Though Doepking wasn’t initially watching Hendrix, the head coach ended up watching one of “the best games Lindsey’s ever pitched,” Rich said.

Now, Doepking is Hendrix’s head coach at Syracuse. The third-year coach has utilized rookies Gustave and Hendrix, who competed for spots in the rotation immediately because of the competition they faced in high school and during travel softball, according to their respective high school coaches. Gustave won two straight league championships in the competitive Trinity League in Southern California in 2018 and 2019, while Hendrix was the only pitcher on Timber Creek’s (FL) team that had a state semifinal appearance her sophomore season.

In Hendrix’s first season on the varsity softball team, there were two other pitchers: a freshman, Britton Rogers — who now starts at Georgia — and a senior. Rogers transferred the next year, leaving Hendrix as the only pitcher on the team. She responded by compiling 354 strikeouts over her next three seasons, leading the state in ERA (0.47) her junior year and racking up two All-State appearances. In one game her sophomore season, Hendrix struck out the first 20 batters and fielded a groundout for the final out. Despite pitching in nearly every inning of every game for Timber Creek, Hendrix graduated with a career ERA of just 0.70.

“There was a lot of pressure because, if she had a bad day, there wasn’t anybody to come in behind her and save her,” Rich said. “She had no problems with it most nights.”

Some nights were more difficult than others, however. Rich recalled one 15-inning game that Hendrix pitched the entirety of, and she came off the field in tears as a result of the workload. She also struggled with back soreness, likely the result of overuse, he said.

Nobody other than her teammates and family knew about the injury, and she never complained about it, Timber Creek head coach Morgan Williams said. At times, Hendrix could “barely walk” when she wasn’t pitching, Williams said. When her season ended, she worked to recuperate and improve her strength before coming to Syracuse. But the injury is likely one Hendrix will deal with for “the rest of her life,” Rich said.

“She felt like there was a responsibility to keep going,” Rich said. “She wanted to be there for her team and to continue to get better and to get ready to come up to Syracuse.”

Gustave had the opposite problem as Hendrix. When she joined the Orange County Batbusters travel team, there were four other pitchers already on the roster. Head coach Clay Lara said Gustave welcomed the challenge and eventually became one of the team’s top-two pitchers. She pitched lots of innings in the most competitive games, which is something she always looked forward to.

She faced a similar situation upon arriving at Syracuse: a rotation already filled with Oliver and an SU record-holder in Romero, which left limited space open for a freshman pitcher. But just over a month into the season, both Gustave and Hendrix have already cemented themselves in Doepking’s rotation, routinely pitching multiple times in weekend series.

Williams said Hendrix prepared for her first season with the Orange by staying late at practices her senior year with a few teammates, running gasser tests and throwing extra with her best friend, Tristin Peace, who is now a catcher at Rollins College in Florida. Over 2,500 miles west, Gustave was putting in extra bullpen sessions and pitching lessons with her coaches. Both prepared over the summer with the goal of competing for spots in Syracuse’s rotation, their high school coaches said.

But Hendrix wasn’t fully prepared at first for what she would endure at Syracuse, Williams said. There were more workouts and conditioning exercises, and balancing school and softball became a challenge, Rich said. But Hendrix has received support from her roommate and fellow freshman, Angel Jasso, and Romero has served as a mentor to Hendrix.

The tandem played a large part in SU’s series against No. 12 Duke but struggled against the Atlantic Coast Conference leader. In her two appearances, Gustave allowed six earned runs over six innings, and Hendrix gave up six earned runs and walked five hitters the following day. Williams noted that walks, especially to batters near the bottom of the order, have been a problem for Hendrix in the past and have been something the two have spent a lot of time working on.

“She pitches cute to batters,” Williams said. “That’s what we’ve always worked on: never taking one pitch off, never giving in. From top to bottom, she has got to work and get the easy outs when she can and not mess around and give people free passes.”

Even with early struggles against top teams, Lara is confident that Gustave will figure it out to become one of Syracuse’s best pitchers. Like her appearance against Norco, Gustave has proved she can handle the pressure.

“The more Jolie is in the circle, the more innings she throws, the more confident she’ll be and the better she’s going to continue to throw for Syracuse,” Lara said. “All I have is high expectations for her because that’s what she showed me. She always reaches her goal.”

Published on April 5, 2021 at 10:27 pm

Contact Connor: [email protected] | @csmith17_