Softball: Cherry matures into Cajun leader

Kevin Foote, The Advertiser, March 1, 2013

UL senior centerfielder Brianna Cherry / The Advertiser photo

There was a time in her career when UL senior centerfielder Brianna Cherry would really have been celebrating her recent accomplishments.

And truthfully, it would be hard to blame her if she was doing a little bit of that even today.

This past week Cherry was named the Sun Belt Player of the Week after hitting .368 with four home runs and eight RBIs on the week. She was also named to the NFCA Leadoff Classic All-Tournament team.

And oh yeah, she just happens to be leading one of the nation’s top programs in hitting these days at .429 with six homers, 21 RBIs, 40 total bases and a team-high .952 slugging percentage.

As a freshman and even as a sophomore, Cherry might very well have been dancing around, saying, "Look at what I did."

Brianna Cherry the senior, however, has a very different mindset. While family members back home in Petal, Miss., are understandably wanting to make a big deal about her recent feats, she just shrugs it off.

Cherry is a focused senior leader of a nationally ranked softball team these days. There’s no time to be bringing attention to herself.

It wasn’t always that way, though.

"My freshman year, I was looking out for myself," Cherry said. "I was focused on me. I wanted to play and then I wanted to travel and then I wanted to hit a bunch of home runs.

The results weren’t good. She batted .067 for the season, played just 16 games with only five starts and drove in three runs.

Cherry stayed in Lafayette that following summer and hit the weights. That’s when the change began. By the end of her sophomore season, it was almost complete.

"It took a total transformation in my mind before I got better," Cherry said. "I had to understand that it’s about the entire program, not about me. I had to understand that it’s about playing for your teammates, your sisters. I didn’t accept that at first. It wasn’t until I got it that I started to improve, because it wasn’t just me that was improving. I needed the help of my teammates to get better."

Once that light went off in her head, Cherry said everything started to change for her.

As a freshman, there was no extra hitting. Days off then meant taking naps to Cherry. Once the light went off,every off day was spent in the cage getting extra batting practice.

The results began to show. As a sophomore, she improved to .239 with 32 starts, getting three homers and 12 RBIs.

Her mentality in the batting cages also began to improve.

"At first, I was just swinging in the cage," Cherry said. "Then my mindset got better. My time in the cage became more meaningful. I worked more on situational hitting."

And that approach has carried onto the field as well.

"I used to just go up there trying to hit a home run every time when sometimes all we needed was a base hit," Cherry said.

In other words, the talent was always there. Cherry now realizes that. It was just a matter of her mind and approach to the game getting to the point where she could effectively utilize her raw skills.

"There’s no doubt that Brianna’s success athletically goes hand-in-hand with her maturation as a person," UL coach Michael Lotief said. "Really, it’s like that for every player. Some get it quicker than others, but it’s not like all of a sudden they get that much better athletically. The talent was always there. It’s about getting their mind to the point where they can use that God-given talent. Brianna’s made that transformation."

Indeed, Cherry has come a long way from that freshman who hit below .100.

"I don’t see myself as a star," Cherry said. "I just go out every day and try to improve, whether it’s a little or a lot. I just try to get better every day in practice."

Perhaps there was no greater example of Cherry’s amazing progress than in last season’s Super Regional at defending champion Arizona State.

On a team with two All-Americans, Cherry was UL’s best hitter in those three games. She was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a stolen base in the first game and 2-for-4 with an RBI in the second game. Even in the 0-for-3 rubber game, her outs were line drives near the fence.

"That (series) was a great experience," Cherry said. "It was a one-of-a-kind experience for me. I know we had played in that atmosphere before at UCLA my freshman year, but this one meant more for me. I’ll admit that at first I was a little scared going against an All-American pitcher and then I thought, ‘She’s going for the same thing I was going for.’ So I just tried to find a way to beat her.

"We were so close last year and I expect us to go even farther this year."

Now as a senior, all those long, winding paths have come together in a polished senior leader for the Cajuns.

"My hand-eye coordinator has gotten better," she said. "I’m more aggressive and I’m more aggressive at the right time this year. I get in the box and I have a plan. Then I just let it go."

And when the games are over, this now mature version of Brianna Cherry watches. She sees other college students outside the softball arena who don’t have the same drive or motivation that she’s been blessed to learn.

"You see it everywhere," said Cherry, who is majoring in pulic relations and is considering graduate school. "They don’t have anyone motivating them or that something to drive them. When you got into the outside world, you can see the difference.

"This program has taught me so much about the game, but also about life and about how to be a better person."

Cherry also sees the younger players on the team and tries to keep them from taking as long as she did "for the light to go off."

She sees a true freshman like Shellie Landry, who "already gets it."

"I’m just so impressed with Shellie," Cherry said. "She’s already on the right path."

Making the college experience even greater for her is spending it with her first cousin in shortstop Nerissa Myers.

"We grew up together," Cherry said. "We were born 11 days apart. We played all the sports together growing up and we went to the same high school. There was no way I was going to different college than her.

"It’s been such a great experience. It’s very surreal at times. It’s kind of crazy how it all happened. And yet, I kind of feel like it was destined to happen."