Stephan Teodosescu
steodosescu@mustangdaily.net
Loaded with an arsenal of rise-balls, inside curves and a devastating screwball, Chloe Wurst mowed down Pacific’s hitters pitch by pitch en route to a 3-0 complete-game shutout in Saturday’s second game of the Cal Poly softball team’s doubleheader against the Tigers.
Wurst allowed just five hits in that game to counter a 7-0 loss earlier in the day, where she was pulled after allowing five runs in the first 2 1/3 innings as the starter.
That single day outing summed up Wurst’s everyday approach out on the field perfectly. No matter the circumstances, she can put a poor performance behind her immediately because win or lose, the La Verne, Calif. native’s mentality in the circle is always the same: just live to see another pitch.
“Pitch each pitch like it’s your last,” Wurst said. “And that’s the mentality I try to go for every pitch.”
And for good reason, because that mindset once had a more literal connotation than a cliché one for the redshirt sophomore. In fact, she was once told that she indeed had thrown her last pitch and would never see the inside of a pitcher’s circle again.
While home from school in her freshman season at NCAA Division II West Texas A&M, Wurst went to bed New Year’s night with severe shortness of breath. She awoke the next morning unable to breathe and had to be immediately rushed to the hospital by her parents.
There, Wurst and her family learned that the once high school MVP pitcher had a rare and conceivably devastating disorder for an athlete her age. The doctors told her that she had two pulmonary embolisms — blood clots in the main artery servicing the lungs — a potentially fatal condition.
“My world just tumbled,” Wurst said. “For the first time, I felt completely worthless as a person. That feeling like when you’re realizing you can’t do anything on your own, that true dependence on someone else (feeling), just completely took over.”
She was immediately placed on anticoagulants to prevent her blood from clotting any further and to treat the existing condition, but at the cost of her career and her active lifestyle, she said.
Doctors told Wurst she would likely never exercise again, let alone play softball. The risk that a minor injury, no matter how menial, suffered would lead to severe internal bleeding was too great because of the nature of the blood thinners.
“It was a depressing experience,” Wurst said of the treatments.
But she wasn’t about to give up her career that easily. With the encouragement of her dad, Cliff, and a desire to do anything but sit around, Wurst began walking daily. Walking then turned into jogging, jogging turned into sprints and sprints turned into weight-lifting before her better-than-expected recovery finally allowed her to once again play softball.
“I kind of just said, ‘screw it,’” Wurst said. “I went out exercising on my own and eventually I went to the doctor’s and passed a conditioning test to be fit to play softball again.”
Cal Poly head coach Jenny Condon had scouted Wurst before, and after seeing her stellar senior year performance at Bonita High School coupled with a trusting relationship with Wurst’s club coach, Condon became interested in her softball talents despite her not having thrown a single pitch at the collegiate level, not to mention her health.
Willing to take the risk, Condon offered the left-hander a scholarship before this past season to play for the Mustangs.
“Recruiting is all about gambling as it is,” Condon said. “Some risks pay off and some you don’t necessarily get what you’re looking for. For us, I don’t think we ever waivered about bringing her in.”
Wurst had originally been recruited to play for West Texas A&M after a solid junior year at Bonita put her on the scouts’ radar. As per usual in softball, she signed after that season committing to play for the Lady Buffs before she got any major scouting attention in her senior year.
But following a 19-4 record with a 0.82 ERA in her final season at Bonita, Wurst saw offers from powerhouse schools such as Michigan, Texas A&M and UNLV trickle in.
Admittedly, she panicked in signing early and realized she wanted to play softball closer to home. Her condition only helped her realize that more.
“We were excited about her potential,” Condon said. “We always assumed and hoped that she would come back as strong as she was before she got sick.”
Condon’s hope has turned into reality this season as her decision to bring Wurst aboard has paid dividends for the Mustangs. According to fellow sophomore pitcher Jordan Yates, her hiatus from the game may have even helped her come back stronger this year.
“I think stepping away helped her put the game into perspective,” Yates said. “It can be taken away so quickly and so I think she is thankful for the opportunity that she’s been given.”
After getting thrown into the starter’s role early last season, Wurst is 9-10 overall, owning victories over two ranked teams (No. 18 Washington and No. 13 Georgia), and leads the team with 130 innings pitched.
She has posted shutouts in three of her past five outings and even earned her first-career Big West Pitcher of the Week award this past week by throwing back-to-back shutouts against Cal State Fullerton.
“I didn’t believe it at first because I found out on April 1 (about the award) and I thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” Wurst said. “But it’s a huge accomplishment because not a lot of people receive that and this team has been battling, so any type of award or accolade at this school is an extreme honor.”
Through her unconventional path to Cal Poly, Wurst has even emerged as one of the Mustangs’ team leaders, a responsibility Yates said comes with nature of the position.
“Being a pitcher you definitely have to be a leader,” Yates said. “She’s kind of stepped up to the plate with that role and taken it on well.”