In the regular season, that’s what they did, but after three consecutive dominant starts in the postseason, Escobedo is not letting ASU coach Clint Myers take her out.

In her last 31 and two-thirds innings, dating back to the regular season, Escobedo hasn’t given up an earned run.

Over that stretch, Escobedo has allowed five hits, two unearned runs, six walks, while striking out 36 hitters.

She entered the postseason with question marks about her high home-run rate, especially considering the No. 2 home run hitting team in the country was coming to the Tempe regional.

Instead, Escobedo shut out Georgia (40-21) in back-to-back starts. Only one Bulldog runner reached second base in the two games.

“There was questions through the course of the year about Dallas,” ASU coach Clint Myers said. I think she’s answered them.”

Everyone was wondering what has been the biggest difference with Escobedo now vs. the regular season.

Sophomore catcher Amber Freeman said the difference with her battery mate has boiled down to location, location and location.

“They’ve been having a lot tougher bullpens where coach is down their making sure they hit their spots,” Freeman said.

“They’ve been doing a drill where we have a net with a hole in it and they (pitchers) have to make it in the net a certain amount of times, and if they don’t, they have to run, so I think that’s why she’s having more control on the mound and hitting her spots so well.”

Escobedo is a rise-ball pitcher. If she misses her pitch in the strike zone, it has a high probability of leaving the park.

“I attribute it to the hard work, the extra sprints she’s doing, the (bull)pen (sessions) she’s just locking in and committing to,” Myers said. “This lady works really, really hard. She makes it look real easy out there.”

In the regional final against Georgia, ASU (48-10) quickly backed Escobedo. Junior outfielder Alix Johnson walked, and then stole second to lead off the game.

After an out was recorded, Freeman and sophomore third baseman Haley Steele hit back-to-back doubles, putting ASU up front 2-0.

With the way Escobedo has been pitching lately, two runs of support proved plenty. The Bulldogs put a runner in scoring position once against Escobedo, but she struck out the next two hitters to get out of the jam.

Georgia freshman pitcher Chelsea Wilkinson was lifted after one inning, allowing the two runs.

Bulldogs junior pitcher Morgan Montemayor came out of the bullpen and tossed six scoreless innings of relief against the powerful ASU lineup.

In last night’s elimination win against San Diego State, Montemayor pitched a complete game for the win.

Should she have gotten the start for Georgia?

“The hindsight is 20-20, I’m absolutely proud of her performance when she came in,” Georgia coach Lu Harris-Champer said.

Up Next

Fifth-seeded ASU will take on No. 12 seeded Kentucky (41-19) in the Super Regional in Tempe beginning with Game 1 on May 26 at 7 p.m.

ASU defeated the Wildcats in the first week of the season, 8-1 in Tempe. Escobedo threw a complete game 5-hitter and allowed one run in ASU’s victory in February.

Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11

Escobedo, the ace on ASU’s pitching staff, threw a one-hit shutout in the team’s 2-0 win over Georgia to help the Sun Devils (47-10) advance into the regional final.

Escobedo’s one-hitter comes on the heels of her no-hitter in the postseason’s opening game, the first postseason no-hitter program history, in a 5-2 win over San Jose State.

In her last four appearances, lasting 20 innings, Escobedo allowed one hit. In her the last 24 and two-thirds innings, she has given up two hits and no earned runs.

Escobedo’s performance against Georgia was particularly dominant considering the Bulldogs’ powerful lineup. Georgia (39-20) entered the regional tied for second in home runs and eighth in batting average.

“Yesterday I didn’t feel as great as I did today,” Escobedo said. “I was throwing harder (today), I had a better bullpen warming up and I just felt more locked in.”

Escobedo also had to battle the umpires, who called her for four illegal pitches in the two games. Traditionally, umpires call more illegal pitches in the postseason, while calling them sparingly in the regular season.

In Friday’s affair, San Jose State (42-16) scored two unearned runs on an error by left fielder Elizabeth Caporuscio, who misplayed a fly ball.

The Spartans had runners reach on a walk and a hit batter, both of which came around to score on the error.

Despite the pitching dominance in both games, ASU’s offense was also held under wraps.

“At this stage of the game, you’re not going to get 10, 12 hits; the pitching’s too good and there’s a little more pressure on the hitters than in the regular season,” ASU associate head coach Chuck D’Arcy said.

ASU took the lead in the fifth off a defense miscue against San Jose State. Junior shortstop Cheyenne Coyle reached on an errant throw by senior San Jose State shortstop BranDee Garcia on a grounder. Garcia had enough time to throw out Coyle, but she rushed the throw and the ball airmailed the first baseman.

ASU added two more insurance runs, and held on to win 5-2, advancing in the winner’s bracket to face the Bulldogs.

Against Georgia, ASU’s offense did just enough to back Escobedo’s dominant performance of one hit, one walk, and 11 strikeouts in seven innings.

In the third inning, three consecutive seeing-eye singles with two outs put ASU in the driver’s seat. Junior outfielder Bailey Wigness singled softly to center, and junior outfielder Alix Johnson reached on a bunt. Coyle hit a ball to Georgia senior second baseman Tess Sito with a funky spin. Sito fell down and ball trickled into center field, putting the Sun Devils on the board with a double.

Escobedo’s no-hitter was broken up with two outs in the sixth, when sophomore third baseman Anna Swafford singled on a softly hit ball to Coyle.

Regional final set

ASU will play Georgia in the regional final Sunday at 3 p.m. If ASU loses tomorrow, it will have a second opportunity against the Bulldogs to move on to the Super Regionals.

Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11

Offense: If there’s one word to describe ASU’s offense, it’s depth. All 10 regulars in ASU’s lineup are hitting at least .300. In the regular season, ASU became known for the home run; hitting 89, which ranked fourth in Division I. Six players hit at least nine home runs in the regular season, and sophomore catcher Amber Freeman was named Pac-12 Player of the Year.

Pitching: Junior pitcher Dallas Escobedo dominated No. 3 Oregon in the last regular season series, earning USA Softball Pitcher of the Week honors. Escobedo threw 13 innings against the Ducks and allowed five hits and two runs, while striking out 19. In the regular season, ASU rotated between Escobedo and fellow junior pitcher Mackenzie Popescue, but Popescue has regressed since Pac-12 play. She began with a 3.54 ERA in conference play.

Overall: This is coach Clint Myers’ eighth season at the helm of ASU. In his first seven seasons, ASU has advanced past regionals all seven times, and six times to the Women’s College World Series, winning two national championships. At times, ASU looked shaky in the regular season in road series defeats at Utah, and UA, but at home, the Sun Devils are difficult to beat with a 35-3 record. Myers is also 25-3 at home in the playoffs.

Contender: Georgia (38-19, 14-9 SEC), RPI: 30

Offense: Georgia’s team strength stems from their explosive offense, and it’s one of the best in the country. Georgia hit 90 home runs, tied for second in the regular season. The Bulldogs lead the country in slugging (.593). However, it’s not all about power for Georgia; it also ranks eighth in batting average (.337) and near the top-25 in stolen bases (88).

Pitching: On the mound, Georgia is a very young team with two freshmen and one junior starter. The inexperience shows as Georgia sits 10^th in the SEC with a 3.18 ERA. Freshman Geri Ann Glasco leads the Bulldogs in wins (17), but she also serves as Georgia’s leading home run hitter (19).

Overall: Georgia could give the Sun Devils fits if this becomes a high-scoring regional. It’s been mentioned all season, but Escobedo is prone to the long ball, allowing 32 home runs in the regular season. Their biggest strength (home runs) plays into the hands of a weakness ASU has.

Meyers’s take: “You know that they’ve got power, they’ve got one more home run than we do. I thought we were a pretty good power team this year.”

In the mix: San Diego State (35-18, 13-5 Mountain West), RPI: 48

Offense: Junior designated player Lorena Bauer (.421, 13 home runs) and junior outfielder Patrice Jackson (.368, 16 home runs) make up a powerful 1-2 punch in the middle of San Diego State’s lineup. However, the rest of the team lacks depth and are hitting .265 with 14 home runs.

Pitching: The pitching duo of fifth-year senior Rebecca Arbino and freshman Danielle O’Toole has pitched well. Both sport ERAs below two and as a staff and San Diego State ranks 18^th in the country in ERA (1.94).

Overall: This is the sixth consecutive year the Aztecs qualified for the postseason, and ninth overall in program history. They haven’t advanced past regionals in any appearance. In 2009 and 2011, San Diego State played in the Tempe regional, but both times, the Sun Devils advanced to the Super Regional.

Myers’s take: “They’re scrappy. They’ve been the giant killers as long as I know. San Diego (State) will come out and compete as hard as possible against Georgia.”

Also Invited: San Jose State (42-15, 17-4 WAC), RPI: 55

Offense: At the plate, San Jose State doesn’t have the star-power offensively as the other teams in the region do. But with a .356 batting average and nine home runs, senior outfielder Markesha Collins has been a nice offensive player for the Spartans.

Pitching: San Jose State will need to rely on fifth-year senior pitcher Amanda Pridmore if they want to be competitive in the region. Pridmore has thrown nearly two-thirds of the team’s innings and leads the Spartans with a 29-9 record and a 1.51 ERA.

Overall: WAC champion San Jose State is thrilled to be in the postseason. The last time the Spartans qualified for the NCAA tournament was in 1992, and their other trip to the happened in 1990. ASU and San Jose State first met in 1987, with the Sun Devils sporting an 11-1 record against the Spartans, including a 4-0 victory in 2012.

Meyers’s take: “The essence of the team is still the same just like us. They’ve got a couple freshmen getting some playing time. You lose a couple seniors, that part of it changes, but they’re competitive, scrappy. It’s not like we scored a whole bunch of runs (in 2012), same pitcher. She’s pretty good.

Reach the reporter at justin.janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @JJanssen11

ASU (45-10, 16-8 Pac-12) hosts a double-elimination regional at Farrington Stadium May 17-19, joined by Georgia, San Diego State and San Jose State.

If ASU advances from the regional, the Sun Devils would host a best-of-three Super Regional for the right to go to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

The double-elimination format worked nicely for ASU in the past, overcoming a loss in regionals and Super Regionals to advance to the Women’s College World Series in 2012.

“I think it benefits us because having to play in the heat, practice in the heat, we’re a lot more adept to spend six, seven hours on the field compared to some of our counterparts,” ASU coach Clint Myers said. “I’m hoping that doesn’t happen this year and we just take care of business.”

The Sun Devils were unsure whether they would host in the first two rounds of the postseason, given their RPI of 12 and No. 5 stature in the polls entering the weekend. The doubt stemmed from losing series at Utah and rival UA.

But in the last week of the regular season, ASU took down third-seeded Oregon, which was enough to reassure confidence in ASU from the selection committee.

“Obviously we were really happy because we were skeptical if we were going to host or not,” junior shortstop Cheyenne Coyle said. “It’s always nice playing at home. We had a really good weekend and we had good wins against a good team.”

ASU relishes the opportunity to play in from of their home crowd, sporting a 35-3 home record. Myers is 25-3 at home in the postseason with the Sun Devils. Two of those losses came last year.

“Throughout the year we’ve played our best softball at home,” junior outfielder Alix Johnson said. “It’s definitely an advantage to play at home for two weekends straight.”

ASU opens postseason play with WAC champion San Jose State (42-15, 17-4) Friday at 3 p.m. on ESPNU.

Last season, ASU defeated SJSU 4-0 in the Kajikawa Classic on opening day, but the Spartans look different from the .500 team they were a season ago.

“It’s been a year, anything could happen in a year,” Johnson said. “Even the old film that we do have, we don’t truly know if that’s going to be the standards that they have this year.”

If ASU defeats SJSU in the opening game, they will take on the winner of Georgia-SDSU Saturday.

Freeman named Pac-12 Player of the Year

It’s been a stellar season for sophomore catcher Amber Freeman.

First, she blogs for ESPNW. Then she was named Pac-12 Player of the Year, the conference announced Wednesday.

Freeman started all 55 regular season games for ASU and hit .385 with 16 homers and 58 RBIs.

Freeman was a Top-25 Finalist for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and elevated her game in conference play, sporting a .394 batting average.

More Sun Devils honored

Freeman wasn’t the only Sun Devil honored in the past week.

Escobedo was named USA Softball Player of the Week and Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week for her performance against third-seeded Oregon. She gave up just two runs in 13 innings with 19 strikeouts, and was one of the reasons why the Sun Devils took the series from the Pac-12 champions.

“That’s very exciting to be recognized by the USA program and even Pac-12,” Escobedo said. “I don’t think about it on the field, but when I do succeed and receive an award like that, it’s great.”

Escobedo, Coyle, and Freeman were also named to the Pac-12 first team.

Escobedo went 25-4 with a 2.31 ERA and 289 strikeouts in the regular season. Myers said she will start Game 1 of the postseason.

Coyle, in her first season with ASU, hit .364 and leads the Sun Devils with 19 home runs and 60 RBI.

Junior pitcher Mackenzie Popescue was named on the Pac-12 second team and first baseman Nikki Girard was named to the Pac-12 all-freshman team.

Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11

ASU (45-10, 16-8 Pac-12) did just that, taking the series from No. 2/3 Oregon (46-9, 19-5 Pac-12) at home.

“We feel confident, especially taking two out of three from Oregon, Pac-12 champs,” junior outfielder Alix Johnson said. “Game by game, we’re starting to play our best softball.”

ASU positioned itself for home-field advantage in the postseason by defeating the Pac-12 champion. The Sun Devils now will have to find out where they land in the ESPNU selection show Sunday at 7 p.m.

“I feel like we’ve been on a rollercoaster all year,” Escobedo said. “Right now we are starting to play our best softball.”

ASU rallies to take Game 1

Oregon started off the series Thursday by hitting the ball hard off ASU junior pitcher Dallas Escobedo. Sophomore Ducks outfielder Janie Takeda led off the game with a double. However, she was doubled off when the next hitter lined out to third.

After a scoreless second inning, Oregon took the lead in the third when Takeda homered to bring in two runs.

In the bottom of the inning, ASU countered. With two outs and two runners on, ASU strung together three consecutive hits, all producing runs, to take a 3-2 lead.

“From this point on you can’t squander base runners,” Myers said. “If you get them in scoring position, regardless of outs, you’ve got to get them in. We did a pretty good job when we needed to in that third inning.”

Oregon couldn’t get anything off junior pitcher Dallas Escobedo following the home run. After the home run, Escobedo retired 14 of the final 16 hitters she faced. Outside of Takeda, the Ducks hit .095 off Escobedo in the game with 10 strikeouts.

ASU clinches the series

For the second consecutive game Friday, ASU trailed in the third inning, this time a 2-1 deficit.

ASU loaded the bases off two walks and a hit batter in three consecutive hitters. Ducks freshman pitcher Cheridan Hawkins was abruptly taken out of the game after loading the bases.

Senior second baseman Sam Parlich stepped up with a bases-loaded single driving in two runs. Oregon senior second baseman Kaylan Howard and junior shortstop Courtney Ceo collided trying to field the chopper up the middle. Ceo had to be helped off the field, but Howard stayed in the game.

The following batter hit the ball at Howard and she booted the grounder, bringing in another ASU run. Junior catcher Lucy Aubrecht capped off the inning with an RBI single, putting ASU ahead 5-2.

Neither Ceo nor Howard played in Game 3.

Junior pitcher Mackenzie Popescue allowed the first two batters to reach in the fourth and fifth innings, ending her night in the fifth. ASU’s defense bailed her out in the fourth, and Escobedo stranded the inherited runners in the fifth.

Ducks Avoid Sweep

In the final game of the regular season Saturday, Oregon avoided a sweep behind four extra-base hits. The Ducks hit two home runs off Popescue, who had only allowed five prior all season.

ASU cut the lead to 4-2 behind Johnson’s two-run homer, but the Sun Devils didn’t get any closer.

Moore and Hawkins combined on a four-hitter, despite only recording one strikeout. In the first four innings, one ball left the infield.

Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11

ASU (43-9, 14-7 Pac-12) takes on No. 2 Oregon at home May 9-11 and will likely need to win the series to assure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

It’s not a slam-dunk ASU will be one of the top eight teams hosting both regionals and Super Regionals if the Sun Devils advance in the playoffs.

Despite its gaudy top-five poll ranking, ASU’s No. 12 RPI could hold the Sun Devils back. However, defeating Oregon (45-7, 18-3 Pac-12) multiple times would put the Sun Devils in great position heading into the postseason.

“It’s important to us, but I think if we end up having to travel, we’re just going to win on the road,” junior pitcher Mackenzie Popescue said. “That is something that we are definitely going for and we would rather stay here, but in the end it’s not a home game, it’s not an away game, it’s a softball game.”

ASU plays significantly better at home than on the road. In Tempe, ASU is 33-2, while it has a 10-7 record everywhere else.

Some of the inflated home record is due to stockpiling easy wins in non-conference play, but the Sun Devils still are 8-1 in Pac-12 play at home, compared to 6-6 on the road.

“I’m looking for answers as well,” ASU coach Clint Myers said. “Why does it happen on the road and not here? I think the preparation for everything has been good. It’s the inability to perform to the level of our expectations. We haven’t had this problem in the past so it’s kind of a new problem.”

One of the more concerning issues for ASU recently is on the mound, where junior pitchers Dallas Escobedo and Popescue have been inconsistent.

After starting the season 15-0 with a 0.92 ERA, Popescue is 3-5 with a 4.16 ERA since the calendar turned April. She has as many strikeouts (21) as earned runs in that stretch and twice, opposing teams had walk-off hits facing Popescue.

All season long, opponents bit Escobedo with home runs. In Friday’s 10-9 loss, ASU scampered an eight-run lead to UA, partly due to the two home runs she allowed.

“They hit a lot of pitches that I missed over the plate,” Escobedo said. “Anyone’s going to hit a ball that’s on the white.”

Both Escobedo and Popescue are excited for the pitching matchup against Oregon, featuring some of the top arms in softball.

Oregon freshman pitcher Cheridan Hawkins (17-4, 1.56 ERA) and senior pitcher Jessica Moore (24-3, 1.53 ERA) are one of the main reasons the Ducks won the Pac-12 this season for the first time in program history.

“Moore pitches on both sides of the plate,” Myers said. “She’s got four pitches. There’s a reason why she’s been an all-Pac-10, all-Pac-12 pitcher since she’s been at Oregon.”

Moore was named a top-10 finalist for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year.

“Jessica Moore is a great athlete, all-around pitcher,” Popescue said. “They mix it up. They have speed, they’ve got movement.”

Note:

Friday and Saturday’s 5 p.m. games air on Pac-12 Networks, while Thursday’s game begins at 7 p.m., but is not broadcasted.

The NCAA softball bracket will be revealed at 7 p.m. PT Sunday, with the selection show airing on ESPNU.

Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11

A Dual World: ASU student Brianna Procopio strives to be a nurse, while battling Crohn’s.
Photo by Perla Farias

In a cramped 300-square foot dorm room, Brianna Procopio and Colleen Murphy lay on their blue, green and red carpet. Both twin beds were made. Photos of smiling teenaged girls and boys and a blanked with brightly colored fish swimming in the ocean looked down on the beds.

The ASU students live in the nursing residential community at Taylor Place Residential hall in Phoenix.

They don’t live alone. They share their room with a “companion” – a five-foot plastic likeness of a human skeleton. They’ve used the skeleton to study human anatomy and physiology. On this day, with books, papers and a computer at hand, Brianna Procopio and Murphy took turns pointing at plastic knees, elbows and the ribcage. They quizzed each other on the tibia, then wrote down their answers in their notebooks. Brianna Procopio owns the skeleton. It’s a symbol of her determination to become a nurse, despite her own health challenges.

*****

Procopio says she tries to see the bigger picture when it comes to hardships in life and to instill what she’s learned as a patient into her student life.
Photo by Noemi Gonzalez

Brianna Procopio is a tall 19-year-old with medium-length brown hair. She is quiet and often keeps to herself. Her surgical scars show when she wears tank tops and shorts.

Her passion for nursing stems from her own serious illness. She has Crohn’s Disease. She said she was diagnosed the summer before she started high school, when she was 15. Crohn’s Disease is an autoimmune disease causing inflammation in the lining of the digestive tract. There is no cure, but there are treatments to reduce the symptoms so patients can function well. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea and blood in the stool. Many people who have Crohn’s say others do not want to talk or hear about it.

Brianna Procopio knows that with a chronic illness, becoming a nurse won’t be easy. Right now, she’s in remission and able to do many things that her peers do. At any point, she knows the Crohn’s could flare up. She could get sick again. Her plans could be derailed.

“I don’t know when it’s going to come back, because I know it will,” she says. “I have plans for my life. I used to plan and now I can’t. I’m afraid I’m going to have all of these plans and they’re going to fall through.”

Procopio avoids certain social events and eating the junk food many students love. As a college student, this often means staying indoors.
Photo by Noemi Gonzalez

***

 About 1.4 million Americans suffer from Crohn’s Disease and related illnesses. Crohn’s is slightly more common in females and is often diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 35.

Crohn’s is a life-long disease that can have life-threatening complications. Those who have the disease need to be careful in many aspects of their lives, and that varies from person to person. Brianna Procopio says she sees a pediatric gastroenterologist at Cardon Children’s Medical Center, where she also receives outpatient treatments every eight weeks.

“Now that I am in remission, I can live like a normal college student and not worry too much about my symptoms,” Brianna Procopio says.  She calls it “normal with modifications.”

For her, those modifications include not drinking or partying, getting sufficient sleep, eating healthy foods and staying away from the foods, like pizza, that cause her problems.

She says Crohn’s hasn’t been all that bad, now that she’s been diagnosed. In fact, it’s given her life direction. Ever since she was first hospitalized for a month after her initial diagnosis, she knew her path in life. She wanted to become a healthcare worker thanks to the positive impact of her hospital nurses.

She’s not alone. Fifty-eight percent of college students preparing for healthcare professions had a childhood illness or accident that prompted them to want to become healthcare professionals, according to a 2012 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

According to the study, this cohort – students with illnesses who have been positively influenced by their personal experience with healthcare workers – has been increasing slightly in the past several years.

“My disease is such a huge part of who I am today that I’d be absolutely lost without it. I wouldn’t be the same person if I didn’t have it,” she says.

*****

Procopio embraces the scar left behind by the installation of her mediport, a tool used to infuse her blood with Crohn’s medication through an intravenous drip feed (IV). Because Procopio says she bruises easily and has “bad veins,” she says the mediport provides a better system.
Photo by Perla Farias

In the days before she was diagnosed, Procopio suffered from severe Crohn’s symptoms. “It’s the most terrifying experience — being in a crowded place far from the bathroom and not knowing where they are,” Procopio recalled. “I just ran.”

“I remember the preceding summer, she would spend most of her time curled up in a ball on the couch because she was in excruciating abdominal pain,” says older sister Crista Procopio, a business student at ASU.

For months, Brianna Procopio visited a primary-care doctor who told her she had the flu or perhaps an eating disorder which was frustrating for the food lover. As the undiagnosed illness intensified, she didn’t like to leave the house, go out with friends to dinner or to the mall. She wanted to stay home, close to a bathroom. She was an incoming high-school freshman on the cheer team, and her behavior didn’t seem normal to her parents.

On a family trip to Disneyland, Brianna Procopio constantly ran bathroom. The trip was a family attempt to get her out of the house and back into a normal life. The drive home was a nightmare, with frequent bathroom stops.

After returning from the family trip, Brianna Procopio visited her doctor. Several nurses couldn’t get a needle into her vein to draw her blood and sent her to the emergency room. From there, she was admitted to the hospital. She had a CT scan and the emergency-room doctor said she might have Crohn’s.

“I remember smiling and thanking the doctor when she was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, but not because I was happy about the illness,” Brianna Procopio’s mom, Karen Procopio, a high school teacher, says.

The family knew what they were up against. A close relative of Karen Procopio’s has Crohn’s Disease and has been sick for much of his life.

Brianna Procopio was hospitalized for almost a month in August. She couldn’t eat, had lost 30 pounds and felt very weak, she recalls. She remembers how sunshine streamed through her hospital room window, shining on her stuffed animals and cards from classmates and cheer teammates.

At first, her hospital-room door had a NPO sign, which is Latin shorthand for “nothing by mouth.” Most of her nutrition came from total parenteral nutrition (TPN), administered through her IV. Eventually, she was allowed liquids and Crista brought her sister different flavors of slushies. As she began feeling better, she asked a nurse if she could start eating. The nurse jokingly wrote “will work for food” on that NPO sign.

Looking back on it, Brianna Procopio has good memories of the hospital. ChildLife specialists helped her cope with the challenges of her illness and filled up time with crafts and games and volunteers with therapy dogs.

During her hospitalization, Brianna Procopio met one of her heroes, a nurse, who inspired her decision to go into nursing. The nurse, Jamie Klimke, became her “absolute role model” because she took time to comfort her and treat her like a human being. Klimke and Brianna Procopio have kept in touch.

Brianna Procopio knows what it’s like to be the patient, which her family thinks will help her as a nurse. She understands what it’s like to be pricked with a needle or have to drink a laxative to prep for a colonoscopy.  And while the doctors never seemed to have much time for her, the nurses, she said, made her hospital stay pleasant.

“She doesn’t remember being so ill,” Karen Procopio says. “But I do, and for a long time, I had huge regrets. It’s hard to think about this time in her life because I blame myself for not getting her help sooner.”

Procopio says her mediport only shows during the summertime when she  swaps her t-shirts for tanks. The mediport is implanted in the chest area with a catheter feeding into a cardiac vein in the neck. 
Photo by Perla Farias

*****

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in March, Brianna Procopio sits with three other Crohn’s patients around a table outside of a Starbucks in Tempe. Giggles fill the air as they discuss their bathroom habits, and the girls get some strange looks from people at other tables. Then the conversation gets serious.

One girl had undergone surgery to have her colon removed, and until a second surgery reconnected her intestines, she wore a colostomy bag outside of her body.

“How was it having the bag?” Brianna Procopio asks.

“It wasn’t horrible, but I wouldn’t want it for the rest of my life,” Amara Babani says. “I was so skinny you wouldn’t have even known. I’d tuck it into my shorts or my pants.”

The women share photos of themselves, including one of Babani’s colostomy bag. They talk about their procedures, their diagnoses and telling friends about their illnesses.

“I don’t like telling new people because I never know what to say,” Brianna Procopio says.

“Or how they’ll react,” Babani says.

Brianna Procopio admitted she sometimes downplays her disease because she doesn’t want people to “look at me differently.”

“Right now, I’m fine, but then I could get sick,” she adds.

But she doesn’t let herself think about getting sick very much. She’s healthy now, focused on the future. And she’s determined to become a nurse.

When talking about her disease, Procopio makes jokes, but on a serious note, says it has led her to understand who she is.
Photo by Noemi Gonzalez

ASU unveiled the new look for their mascot, Sparky today. Out of the four choices, choice B was the final decision. (Photo courtesy of ASU Creative Services)

The fans have spoken for the next Sparky design.

ASU announced on its Facebook and Twitter pages Wednesday Option B has won the fan Sparky voting and will make its debut early next August for the upcoming fall semester.

This announcement follows two weeks of voting on a set of four possible redesigns after students and alumni near-universally rejected another design introduced in March.

According to ASU, 55 percent chose Option B. More than 17,400 students, staff, fans and faculty participated in the voting campaign, which lasted from April 22 to May 5.

This is the sixth change to Sparky since 2000.

Reach the reporter at jnacion@asu.edu and julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow them on Twitter @Josh_Nacion and @JMShumway