If you look up domination in the dictionary you will find a picture of three things: Any baseballs thrown by Randy Johnson vs. Doves (I admit it, I have a sick fetish with exploding fowl), the 49ers vs. the Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV, and Cambria Miranda and Brianne McGowan vs. any collegiate softball team this last season.
Both players received first team all PAC-10 honors this year for their contributions to the seventh-ranked Oregon State Beaver softball team.
This is McGowan’s second first-team award for her pitching abilities and Miranda’s first for her power hitting. And they won for good reason.
Without them, OSU softball wouldn’t be in the post-season. The team has rallied behind their talent to create plays on both sides of the ball. Miranda’s a homerun streak coupled with McGowan’s lights out pitching carried this team to the Promised Land.
McGowan has been the best pitcher on staff this season. And by staff I mean all three pitchers. Shout out to coaching staff, why don’t you try and mix in a few pitchers next recruiting trip? If Ta’yana McElroy red-shirts next year and Amy Klever is graduating, that leaves a one pitcher staff. I might not be a collegiate softball coach but it seems to me that it might behoove the team to have more than one pitcher on staff.
Then again, with McGowan that might not be so bad.
She is the Energizer bunny of softball. A record of 24-6, which was the fourth-best in the conference this season, is legit enough before you factor in that she held batters to .215 batting average. In 345 total innings this season, she pitched 210. She makes Nolan Ryan look like Hideo Nomo.
She focused on her control this year and gave up 35 fewer runs this season. After feeling the breeze from the 201 batters McGowan fanned this season it is easy to see she has become the most efficient pitcher in the PAC-10.
Speaking of efficient, after talking with Miranda this last off-season I knew a she was going to have a great season. But not this great. The hitting coach for the softball team deserves a pat on the back, a six-pack of beer, and a week’s vacation at a day-spa. I didn’t think it was possible to turn a five-and-a-half-foot tall sophomore into a power hitter.
Shows what I know.
Statistically Miranda has either doubled her totals from last season or blown them out of the water. She worked hard all off-season at improving her hitting and it paid off. She increased her statistical runs from 19 to 46, homerun total from five to 14, RBI’s from 18 to 30, and total bases from 66 to 109.
I haven’t seen a player dominate like this since Barry Bonds was coming to the plate after doing needlepoint with Jose Canseco.
She put up a six-game homerun streak, in collegiate softball. This girl can mash like Alan Alda in a trash compactor. Hitting a yellow-green melon-ball is hard enough when it’s being thrown at 80 mph coming from 43-feet away, but she made it look like it was set up on a tee and she was using a 3-wood.
The fact is without the input of these two athletes, the Oregon State Beaver softball team would not be in the position it is in today. They are seventh in the nation, playing for the World Series, and cruising through a season that held a 28-game wining streak. When you talk about contributors, you can’t leave out Brianne McGowan and Cambria Miranda McGowan’s poise in the circle is remarkable and she is capable of carrying this team on her back through the playoffs. And if Miranda can continue her skill level through the post-season the Oregon State softball team might be sporting a few more rings some next fall.
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