8A — Tuesday, March 21, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
For Blanco, life has led to this moment
Seventh inning. Bases loaded.
Two outs. A national championship
on the line.
Tera Blanco and the Firecrackers
— a travel team coached by her dad,
Jeff — were playing for the U-16
national title. Blanco, then a high
school freshman, had pitched a
nine-inning complete game the day
before to send her team to the finals.
Blanco was the best pitcher on
the team, but it was another girl’s
turn to start. Instead, she was the
designated player. But Jeff told his
daughter to be ready. If trouble
struck, they would need her.
“She’d come in from the bullpen,”
Jeff said. “She’d be in the other
end of the dugout and she’d just be
throwing the ball into her glove,
popping the glove really hard, just
kind of staying loose.
“But it also kind of looked like
letting me know, ‘Hey, I’m ready.
Anytime you need me, I’m ready to
go in.’ ”
And indeed, he needed her. The
bases were juiced in the bottom
of the seventh and suddenly, the
game — and the glory — hung in the
balance.
The time had come. Blanco stood
in the circle, fired and got the final
out like there was nothing to it.
The Firecrackers were national
champions.
It was par for the course for a
player seemingly born ready for the
moment. And when that moment
came, one thing was certain — she
would savor every bit of it.
***
You won’t find a lot of Michigan
fans in Huntington Beach, Calif.,
but the Blancos were an exception.
Jeff’s
grandfather
was
from
Michigan and raised him a die-hard
fan, so it was only natural that his
daughters also grew up cheering for
the Wolverines. Blanco would wake
up early Saturday mornings and
turn on the football games — that is,
when she didn’t have softball.
The Blancos caught the softball
bug early. Kayla — born in 1993
— began playing first, and Tera —
born in 1996 — decided she wanted
to play too. By the age of four, she
was playing t-ball and by five she
had started softball. By six, she was
taking pitching lessons.
“She was always trying to stay
on pace with her older sister,”
Jeff said. “ … She was always very
competitive.”
And for Jeff — who got into
coaching because he wanted to be
involved with his daughters’ softball
careers — the natural next step was
to introduce his girls to Michigan
softball. Luckily, the Wolverines
played annually in the Judi Garman
Classic, a tournament in nearby
Fullerton, Calif. Jeff took them to
watch every year.
In 2005, when Blanco was nine,
she watched as the team she had
started to love became the first from
a cold-weather climate to ever win
the Women’s College World Series.
***
It wasn’t long before Blanco had
the opportunity to keep pace with
her sister. Sometimes, Kayla’s travel
team would be missing a player, so
Jeff turned to his other daughter to
fill in. It didn’t matter that she was
three years younger.
After all, competition had always
fueled Blanco, and this was no
exception. Had she not been so
tiny, no one would have known
anything was out of the ordinary.
But that’s the thing. She was small,
so everyone knew. And that made
her all the more impressive.
During one game, Blanco stood
in left field as a high fly ball carried
towards the corner. She tracked the
ball, laid out and made the diving
catch like there was nothing to it.
The umpire took off his mask and
applauded.
It wasn’t a surprise that the
teams Blanco played on had so much
success — not just because of her
talent at both pitching and hitting,
but because she was a natural leader,
even then.
The accolades racked up. The
national championship with the
Firecrackers. A national runner-up
the following year. Back-to-back
league championships at Marina
High School.
“The kids looked up to her from
minute one,” said Michelle Spencer,
a former assistant coach at Marina.
“She really was the person that
everyone on the field looked up to.
And that’s hard sometimes, as a kid,
to deal with that. But she handled it
so well.”
Lots of colleges would have
clamored for a player like Blanco,
as she was one of the top two-way
players in the country.
But she was set on Michigan.
That’s the irony of it. This was
California, a state home to several
powerhouse programs — in fact, at
least one school from the state has
advanced to the Women’s College
World Series all but four years that
Blanco has been alive. But those
schools couldn’t have her.
“She walked into us as a freshman
and said, ‘I’m going to Michigan,’ ”
Spencer said. “ … She was dead set
on Michigan from the moment I
met her.”
The adamancy makes sense.
Blanco, after all, had seen the team
ascend to the highest levels. She
had autographs from her favorite
Wolverines and a picture with
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins and
former star right-hander Jordan
Taylor hanging at home. One of her
coaches had even alerted Hutchins
to her existence.
“He contacted us and said, ‘We’ve
got this kid and she always wears
Michigan stuff, and you should look
at her because she’s pretty good,’ ”
Hutchins said.
Hutchins’
own
evaluation
confirmed the recommendation.
She wanted Blanco primarily as a
pitcher, albeit one that would also
hit. Blanco insisted she wanted to
play shortstop when she wasn’t in
the circle.
Eventually, she relented — first
base would be her position when she
wasn’t pitching — but it only further
proved what Hutchins already
knew: Blanco was a competitor,
exactly the kind of player she was
looking for.
Blanco got her offer freshman
year. She remains one of the
youngest players Hutchins has
ever recruited. But before she
committed, Jeff insisted that Blanco
visit campus in the winter, when
freezing temperatures and swirling
snow would be in full force.
“My dad wanted to know
if I could handle the cold and
everything,” Blanco said. “ … I was
able to handle it.”
She never had a doubt.
That
was
Blanco,
attacking
every challenge handed to her —
whether it was playing against
girls three years older, securing a
national championship or surviving
the frozen tundra of a Michigan
January. She joined the Wolverines
knowing she wouldn’t necessarily
be the main attraction. This was,
after all, a team with three All-
Americans in outfielder Sierra
Lawrence,
right-hander
Megan
Betsa and second baseman Sierra
Romero. But that didn’t deter her.
Instead, she fed off the competition.
“The environment was super
competitive, and I think that’s
what made our team really
great,” Blanco said. “And we
had great leaders that pushed
— I don’t even think they
knew if they were leading
or not — but just pushing the
team with their athletic ability.
… Just coming to the field and
(thinking) ‘Oh, I gotta reach this
standard that they’re at.’ ”
In part, she did just that. She
immediately earned the starting
first base job and ran with it,
starting 64 of the Wolverines’ 68
games there. But she wasn’t the
two-way star who had dazzled
coaches, parents and umpires alike,
as an arm injury limited her to just
five appearances in the circle.
“She really had taken some steps
back,” Hutchins said. “We had to let
her heal and then build her back. …
And it took a couple years to get her
back.”
It was frustrating for an athlete
accustomed to being one of the best.
But it added fuel to her fire.
Blanco’s sophomore year, she
exploded as one of the top first
basemen in the country. She
finished the season in the top 25
nationally in on-base percentage
and garnered an All-America First
Team nod, helping lead Michigan
to a 52-7 record. On the mound, she
still wasn’t quite the player she had
been, but she began getting starts
and putting it together.
She had always been a player who
injected her personality into the
game, and it shined through on the
field and off it.
Blanco and then-catcher Lauren
Connell both loved SpongeBob. So
they gave her changeup a name: the
leedle, after a scene where Patrick
continuously
yells
the
phrase
“leedle leedle leedle lee.” It stuck,
becoming a joke among the rest of
the team.
“It’s kind of a weird changeup,
so they call it a leedle,” said junior
catcher Katie Alexander. “ … We
actually got (pitching coach) Jen
(Brundage) Patrick glasses one year
for a coach’s gift.”
That’s Blanco, a player who finds
success by letting loose. This is an
athlete as fierce as she is fun-loving,
as confident as she is relaxed. It’s a
lethal combination.
“She’s more of like, the goofy first
baseman,” said senior utility player
Aidan Falk, who plays first base
when Blanco is on the mound. “She
brings a lot of personality to the
field. And then, I love playing first
base when she’s pitching because
I just talk to her the whole time …
she definitely has a more spunky
(attitude).”
That
attitude
was the key to her
breakout.
She
approached
every at-bat
with
a
swagger
that struck
fear
into
the
hearts
and
minds
of
pitchers
everywhere, and
for good reason,
given
how
often
she
practically launched the ball into
orbit.
Sometimes, that swagger even
intimidated her teammates.
“There’s a … couple of us on the
team (who) when we were first
freshmen (thought) ‘Wow, Tera, I
didn’t think you liked me, like, when
I met you,’” Alexander said. “ … You
were just so scared because you
thought she hated you.”
But they were wrong. Blanco
is the player who brings the team
into a huddle and checks to make
sure everyone is having fun. She’s
the player who jokes around with
her teammates mid-game. She’s the
player who named her changeup
after a cartoon.
“A lot of our team is just, we get
so caught up in the outcome,” said
senior designated player Amanda
Vargas. “ … She can help us, like, dial
it back.”
In Michigan’s first game of the
2016 Women’s College World Series,
the game was scoreless through five
innings. Blanco stepped to the plate
with the bases loaded. Do or die
time.
She smacked a double to right
field. The Wolverines wound up
winning, 2-0.
Perhaps she was already the
player she had looked up to just the
year before: leading not through
conscious
effort,
but
through
her athletic feats and infectious
enthusiasm for the game alike.
***
But the very competitiveness
that makes Blanco great can also
be her biggest downfall. She holds
herself to such a high standard that
sometimes even she can forget her
fun-loving philosophy.
“Like any player, she can second-
guess herself, and it’s hard,” Jeff
said. “ … Sometimes if things aren’t
going perfect, she can get a little bit
frustrated.”
And that was the story of her
junior year.
In her first season as a full two-
way player, Blanco had a .460
on-base percentage and a 2.30
earned-run average. She was named
to the All-Big Ten First Team and
the
All-Great
Lakes
Region First Team.
It sounds like a
success, but for
Blanco, it was a
slump.
She slugged
just .475,
nearly
a 300-point
drop from the
year
before.
Her
batting
average and
on-base
percentage
also
plummeted.
And
her
pitching
stats,
while
good,
belied
her status as
a
can’t-miss
prospect.
“I think that
maybe
why
my
stats and everything went down last
year is I just probably wasn’t in the
right mindset,” Blanco said at the
beginning of the season. “ … I think
that I was just thinking too much at
the plate.”
But her dad knew her better than
anyone. He knew she had bigger
things in her. He knew her swagger
was contagious. And he knew he
had just the right medicine.
So he sent her video of the
majestic home runs and ringing
doubles of her sophomore year. It
reminded her that she was still that
girl.
***
Technically
speaking,
Jeff
stopped being Blanco’s coach after
her freshman year of high school,
but in reality, he never stopped
coaching her.
He made his way to as many
games as he could. Not just the Judi
Garman Classic, but games all over
the country, from Ann Arbor to
Boca Raton. Now that she’s a senior,
he has plans to attend all but 10.
Jeff sends his daughter a text
before every game letting her know
he loves her, wishing her luck and
offering motivation. He’ll be the
first to acknowledge that he’s her
number one fan.
And now, he coaches a new
crop of young softball players, but
he constantly thinks of Blanco.
He peruses video of professional
ballplayers
and
motivational
speakers. He wonders if it might help
one of his players. Then he wonders
if it might help his daughter.
“If I see something in her game
that maybe she’s not having success
with or she might be struggling with
or trying to get better at, and I see
some video or piece of information,
I’ll send that to her,” Jeff said. “ …
Just, ‘Hey, take a look at this, see
what you think, you know, might be
enough to put you in the right frame
of mind.’ ”
After her games, Blanco and
Jeff often hang out and relax in
the hotel. They talk about — what
else? — softball. Then, they go out to
dinner. Blanco loves sushi. Jeff’s not
a fan of it, but he takes her anyway.
***
Blanco’s magnetic personality
coupled with her unparalleled work
ethic and her dad’s influence always
created the perfect recipe for a
leader. But now she has the final
ingredient: Experience.
“She’s
always
been
really confident in her
game, but her confidence
continually grows,” Falk
said. “She’s definitely taken the
role of kind of like, the caretaker for
the younger girls. … She really is like,
‘Hey, this is what you’re doing, this
is what you’ve gotta do,’ and it’s good
to have, like, another perspective as
well as the coach’s.”
In the circle, the spotlight is off
Blanco. Instead, it’s focused directly
on freshman left-hander Meghan
Beaubien,
the
young
phenom
heralded as the one to fill Betsa’s
shoes. Blanco’s role is subtler.
With Betsa graduated, the role
as the leader of the pitching staff
is Blanco’s. Now more than ever,
it’s a vital responsibility, since the
other two pitchers — Beaubien and
right-hander Sarah Schaefer — are
freshmen. Blanco knows what it’s
like to come to college and struggle
before finding your place. She,
herself, is evidence that it’s a lesson
even the best of freshmen need to
learn.
“She
definitely
gave
(the
freshmen), like, a perspective of
what it was like freshman year,”
Vargas said, “because you can either
come in and you play scared and
afraid because you don’t know what
it’s gonna be like as a freshman,
or, I’m positive she gave them the
outlook of just come, give your
best, and really just … go full force.
There’s really nothing to lose at this
point.”
Of course, Blanco is no slouch
herself in the circle, sporting a 1.36
ERA. And her experience playing
both ways informs the advice she
gives her teammates. She talks
softball with the coaches, and
sometimes they even go to her to
help develop a game plan.
“Tera has some of the best
softball IQ that I’ve ever had on my
team,” Hutchins said. “Her softball
savvy is up there with anybody’s.
She just understands the game.”
And Blanco’s been through it all
— the highs and the lows. She was
always well-versed in the physical
aspects of softball. Now she knows
the mental ones, too.
“They go from being girls with
potential to women with no limits,”
Hutchins said. “And that’s her.”
***
On March 1, Blanco was back
at the tournament she grew up
attending. It was her last Judi
Garman Classic as a player, the end
of an era. Her family, of course, was
there too.
Because it was spring break, the
team had spent nine days together
on the road, traveling from Texas to
California. Before the tournament,
many of the local players had gone
home. Not Blanco. Instead, she took
the rest of the team to Huntington
Beach and served as their unofficial
tour guide. After all, her teammates
had become a second family.
In the first game against Loyola
Marymount, the offensive woes
that had plagued Michigan the
whole season — and really, going
back to last year — had returned in
full force. Beaubien allowed a two-
run home run in the second inning.
The Wolverines responded with a
whimper.
But
Blanco
single-handedly
changed the trajectory of the game
and, with it, the tournament.
In the bottom of the fifth
inning with a runner on third and
Michigan trailing, 2-1, she dug in at
the plate and ripped a single down
the left field line. The game was tied.
Then, in the bottom of the
seventh, she stepped up again
with runners on first and second
and the prospect of extra innings
looming. She lofted a line drive into
the right center gap to walk off the
Wolverines.
Perhaps it was no coincidence
that after the tournament, several
players noted a difference that
weekend: they were looser, freer,
having more fun.
It was just one of many finite
moments
Blanco
will
now
experience as her collegiate career
comes to a close.
There comes a point in a college
athlete’s career when everything
turns into a last. Her last year
becomes her last game becomes her
last hurrah.
And for Blanco, it’s her last season
of living her dream. Ever since she
was the little left fielder making
acrobatic catches, her dream was
to play softball for Michigan. And
now, with the clock running down,
there’s no better time to put last year
behind her and show the world who
Tera Blanco really is.
“I wanna win everything that
we can this year,” Blanco said. “ … I
wanna be a Big Ten champ, Big Ten
Tournament champ, and just keep
winning.”
But the fact that Blanco’s dream
has already come true doesn’t mean
it’s all over. Just as most people
dream multiple times per night
before waking up and snapping
back to reality, this season won’t be
the end for Blanco and the game she
loves.
“I definitely wanna stay within
softball,” she said. “Maybe, like, give
lessons, coach, that kinda stuff.”
Because that’s Blanco, who’s
always led with her knowledge,
her confidence, her personality. It
seems only natural that coaching is
the next step.
After all, for Blanco, it doesn’t
matter what the question is. Softball
is the answer.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Senior pitcher Tera Blanco is one of Michigan’s most experienced and productive players.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer
The senior always dreamed of playing for Michigan. Now, she enters the twilight of her career hoping to go out on top