STANDING TALL

By Mark Moschetti for GoHuskies Magazine

By Washington Huskies

March 30^th, 2018

She didn’t always love softball. In fact, as Taran Alvelo explains, that might be putting it mildly.

“When I was little, I didn’t want to get dirty and I didn’t want to play an outside sport,” the University of Washington pitching standout says. “I quit T-ball. I played one game and said, ‘I never want to play this stupid sport again.’”

On the other hand, Alvelo has always loved purple and gold. It seems that no matter where she went, those were always the colors of choice.

“My elementary school and my middle school were purple and gold. And when I transferred to a high school in Columbus (Ohio), it happened that my school colors were purple and gold again,” she says.

“At the high school (Bloom Carroll), we were the Bulldogs. So I was still a ’Dog,” she adds with a laugh.

But now, Alvelo is a Dawg, adorned in Washington’s version of her two favorite colors. More than that, she’s a Dawg who absolutely loves softball. And she’s one of the big reasons why the Huskies put 27 straight victories into the book to start the season, with no sign of slowing down.

“I feel like we’re coming into the season where we left off last year,” Alvelo says. (The 2017 season ended with a split of four games in the Women's College World Series.) “Our goal is to execute what we need to execute. We’ve done such a good job of that so far this year.”

Alvelo certainly has picked up where she left off in 2017, when she went 35-9 with a 2.07 earned-run average. Of those 27 straight wins – all of them before spring even officially arrived on the calendar – Alvelo logged 12 of them, with a miniscule 0.81 ERA.

“I feel pretty confident in myself – and my team definitely has my back on the little hiccups I’ve had,” she says. “When I give up big hits or have a walk or hit batter, they’re right there to play defense or get a run across for us.

“I feed off their energy and vice versa.”

Dreams Almost Dashed

Even before she got to high school, Alvelo knew she wanted to be a Husky. But, it wasn’t just the UW colors that caught her attention. She watched the team win the College World Series in 2009 and, though just a sixth-grader then, liked what she saw.

“The energy Washington put out on the field the year they won – I was drawn to that,” she says.

While she did make a few calls to other schools, there was no doubt in Alvelo’s mind that she eventually was going to come to Seattle. In fact, she started attending UW’s softball camps from the time she was an eighth-grader.

“I got off the plane in eighth grade with my dad, and it was a small plane – we had to step out on the actual tarmac,” she recalled with a laugh. “We were just at the airport, and I was like, ‘I want to come here.’ And my dad said, ‘Well, let’s see the campus first.’”

Alvelo feared her dream was going to end in a nightmare after a shoplifting incident near the end of her senior year in high school. One of her first calls in the immediate aftermath was to UW coach Heather Tarr.

“She helped me get past it. She saw something in me and she was able to pull me up when I needed it,” says Alvelo, who owned up to it, made restitution, and had her record expunged. “She was like, ‘All right, this is what we have to do now; this is how we have to approach things, and you will be better.’”

Added Tarr, “She handled her business in the right way. It was the biggest learning thing in her own life, that she had to publicly overcome something that was very uncomfortable. What a great opportunity for us to be a part of her learning process.”

Alvelo is very forthcoming in saying all her experiences — both positive and negative — have shaped her into who she has become, on and off the softball field.

“I’m resilient. I definitely feel like that has been one of the aspects of myself that has really shown in the last few years,” she says. “I’m able to get up in the toughest of situations and stand tall and just keep moving.

“Life was tough (at that time). But my teammates, coaches, family and friends — they’ve helped create who I am.”

Sometimes, those tough situations happen in the pitcher’s circle. But, right from the start of her Husky career, Alvelo has stood tall through those, as well. She was the Pacific-12 Co-Freshman of the Year in 2016, a two-time All Pac-12 second-teamer, and was a National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Region selection last spring.

“She’s way more emotionally sound, and she knows what she can do,” Tarr says. “The first two years, she knew how to throw pitches, but didn’t have the command she needed at this level. Physically, she knows now what her body needs to do to produce a pitch. She’s at that place where she knows that about her body, and her mind is in the same place.”

The 21-year-old Alvelo actually started out as catcher when she was eight years old. About a year later, while shagging balls in the outfield, she windmilled a couple of them back in, impressing her coach so much that he strongly encouraged her to start taking lessons.

“From then on, it was my thing,” she says. “There was never a moment when I didn’t want to do this.”

Now, there’s never one when she doesn’t want to keep getting even better – and helping the Huskies do likewise.

“How we practice and how we go about our days – it’s being where our feet are and being in the moment all the time,” Alvelo said. “Eventually, you create this way of life.