THE FLORIDA STATE coaching staff watched the way shortstop Isa Torres worked during the offseason and became more impressed with each passing day. She may have earned All-America honors and set the school record for batting average as a sophomore, but she was still asking pointed questions about how and where she could improve.
They worked with her in the batting cages to improve her ability to hit pitches from the middle of the strike zone inside, one of her bigger weaknesses. They helped her study opposing pitchers so that she could anticipate what pitches she would see and when.
Torres had put in so much work, the coaches allowed themselves to imagine the possibilities as the season inched closer.
“Do you think she can hit .500?” Travis Wilson remembers asking fellow Seminoles assistant Troy Cameron.
Without hesitation, Cameron blurted out, “Yes.”
Torres has done that and more, smashing career, school and NCAA records along the way. As the Seminoles enter Super Regional play, Torres is hitting .542 — a whopping 106 points better than the record .436 she set a year ago. She has nearly doubled her home runs from nine to 16, and has more RBIs, runs scored, doubles and triples. Her increased power has translated into a 1.012 slugging percentage — nearly 500 points higher than last year.
“She was hitting the ball well in the fall and then the two weeks leading up to the season, it was like, ‘If there was ever someone that could do it, she was showing all the signs that she could,” Wilson said. “To throw out, ‘Hey, she’s going to do it,’ is a big, bold call. But she’s blown it out of the park.”
But what Wilson and the staff never imagined is that an injury would be the catalyst for her rise into the record books.
FLORIDA STATE TOOK its home field for the second game of a doubleheader on Feb. 20. After a 10-2 win over Dartmouth earlier in the day, the Seminoles would face a much bigger challenge against then-No. 9 Alabama.
Three weeks into the season, Torres once again led the Seminoles in hitting, batting .525. But everything changed in the top of the seventh inning. Torres fielded a line drive to her glove hand side. As she went to reach for the ball, Alabama’s Marlie Giles made her move off second base and collided with Torres on the basepath. Torres went sprawling backward. Not only did her goggles fly off, but the lenses also popped out of the frames. She hit her head on the ground.
“I was seeing some stars,” Torres said. “I was a little shocked, a little scared, a little timid because I was like, ‘I’m always out here trying to make the plays. Had to get over that moment of fear and continue on.”
Torres somehow finished the game but was diagnosed with a concussion afterward. It marked the first time in her Florida State career she would be forced to sit out.
Away from the team, often alone in a dark room to help her cope with the resulting headaches and pain, Torres struggled with her thoughts. She had never slowed down a day in her life, and now she did not know what to do. Torres felt like she was letting everyone down: Herself, her team, her family.
“Every day, it was like, ‘What’s today going to bring?” Torres said. “Am I going to be crying because I want to be in practice or after every rehab, when my eyes are spinning and I’m tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again? It did take a toll on me.”
Torres was desperate to get back, but doctors and the coaching staff reassured her there was no rush. She had to rest and take the time to feel better.
“The big talk I had with her one day was, “You’re not letting anyone down,” Florida State coach Lonni Alameda said. “When you come back, you’re going to be great. I would have never had the idea that she’d come back and do what she did.”
ON MARCH 4, 12 days after getting hurt, Torres stood in the dugout in her uniform listening to the national anthem before first pitch against Jacksonville, the sun shining on her face. She smiled at the teammates next to her, Jaysoni Beachum and Angelee Bueno. Torres had missed eight games, the longest time away from softball in her entire life.
But she felt better than she had in a long time. The time off gave her time to think, not so much about the injury and why it happened, but about her approach to the game. She realized she had been too hard on herself.
“I had a good sophomore year and fell into unrealistic expectations of my performance,” Torres said. “We tend to be our biggest critics. I think for a little bit, I lost what was important, and I was thinking a little bit more about myself rather than the team. A lot of us can get stuck in the results and the outcome of things. Coming back definitely changed my perspective, definitely made it all about the team and what our team needed.”
She returned as a different player: More relaxed and confident, less hard on herself. The Jacksonville game helped ease her back in, as she went 3-for-4 with two RBIs from her usual leadoff spot.
The following game, against Coastal Carolina, started off with a bunt single. Then a single to shortstop in the second inning. Two more singles and she was now 4-for-4 in the fifth.
“If she gets three hits, we’re like, ‘That’s just Isa doing Isa things,'” Wilson said. “Then the fourth one popped up. You’re like, ‘What a day.’ And then you’re like, ‘Hey she’s going to get another at-bat and if we score some, she could get up for a sixth time.”
Sure enough, in the seventh inning, Torres went to the plate already 5-for-5. She took a first pitch strike, and Wilson screamed from the third base line, “Keep going! Keep swinging!” Torres doubled to right center to cap her 6-for-6 day, becoming the first player in Florida State history with six hits in a game.
Soon, the coaching staff became aware that Torres was “on a heater,” as Wilson described it. The NCAA record for consecutive hits was 13, and Torres was headed right toward the mark.
Torres sensed she might be headed for something big but deleted social media from her phone and refused to talk to anyone about her stats. “Don’t tell me,” she’d say.
On March 20 against Cal, Torres had already tied the mark when she stepped to the plate in the bottom of the fourth. Wilson watched from the third base line. Torres tripled off the wall to set the record with 14 hits in 14 consecutive at-bats.
As soon as she cruised into third, Wilson turned to her and said, “Do you know what you’ve just done?”
“No.”
Wilson smiled. The public address announcer then got on the loudspeaker and told the crowd gathered at JoAnne Graf Field in Tallahassee, Florida, that Torres had just broken the NCAA record.
“Our team didn’t even know anything,” Bueno said. “I didn’t even think there was a record to be broken like that, but it was crazy. Everyone was standing up in the stands, such a chilling feeling. Isa does so many amazing things, but that one just stands out. I just want so much success for her.”
After Florida State won 12-2 in five innings, Torres went up to every member of the Florida State softball staff to thank them and give each of them a hug. She pushed her streak to 16 hits in 16 consecutive at-bats the following day against Cal before it ended in her final at-bat. In all, she reached base safely in 23 consecutive plate appearances, a Florida State record and the third-longest streak in NCAA history.
BY THE TIME April rolled around, Torres was leading the nation in hitting, at one point averaging .600. She had nine home runs in her final 17 regular-season games. Keep in mind she had nine home runs, total, last year.
In addition to her hitting prowess, Torres improved dramatically as a fielder — with one error this year, compared to nine a year ago. Unsurprisingly, she won ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year honors earlier this month.
Wilson recalls something Torres said in a team meeting earlier this year, when she said she was not trying to get a hit every time she went to bat.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way someone who gets as many hits as you is not out there trying to get a hit,'” Wilson said. “As I’ve watched the season go on, I honestly don’t think she’s trying to get hits all the time. She’s just trying to have a good at-bat, put a good swing on a good pitch, and that is the recipe for success: When you’re out there and you’re not trying to get hits, you’re just allowing the game to come to you. That’s just a huge part of this season for her.”
Torres noted all the work she did in the offseason to get to this point, focused particularly on her inability to hit inside pitches at a more consistent level. She has learned to trust herself more at the plate, and her new perspective after sitting out has given her a reason to play with more joy and gratitude for the sport that has helped shape her.
“I’ve worked really hard on things that I haven’t been good at,” Torres said. “So every time I’m in the box, I’m like, ‘No one’s going to beat me in this moment.’ Trusting my preparation, all the film that I’ve been watching, physically being in cages, hitting off the machines has played a huge role in the success I’ve had. Just trusting everything that I’ve worked for and believe in myself.”
No matter how this season ends, Torres has at least one more year in college — perhaps two if the proposed “5-for-5” legislation the NCAA recently proposed passes and goes into effect starting in the fall, giving student-athletes the opportunity to play five seasons within a five-year period.
She already is among the greatest players in school history. But her coaches believe the best is still to come.
“I don’t think she’s really tapped into all she’s capable of doing,” Alameda said. “We’re just seeing the start of how great Isa can be.”
ESPN’s Victoria Jackson contributed to this report.
