Imagine going from never playing college softball before - you haven't played a competitive game in more than year for that matter - yet you are suddenly looked to as your team's ace pitcher.
Don't worry. You have a vicious fastball that's too nasty for most anyone to hit.
Those are some of the feelings that ASU redshirt freshman Desiree Serrano has felt over the past three months.
Serrano, the new ace up head coach Linda Wells' sleeve, has exceeded expectations to say the least this season, as she has compiled a 17-9 record with a 1.50 ERA, while throwing 177.2 of the team's 287 innings.
The Colton, Calif., native's 187 strikeouts are already eighth all-time on the school's single season record list with eight regular season games plus the post season to go.
"I didn't know I was going to be throwing as much as I have been," Serrano said. "There has been a lot of pressure on me. Being a freshman, I've kind of had to step up when I didn't know that was coming.
"I didn't expect to be [the ace], but it's what I've worked for my whole life. After sitting out last year, I didn't expect to do this good."
Even though the ASU softball team lost a host of seniors after an extended run through the College World Series last season, the Sun Devils were still expected to compete this season.
After all, they returned a pair of top-25 national player of the year candidates in senior shortstop Kara Brun and junior third baseman Phelan Wright. However, every player who threw a pitch for ASU in 2002 would not return for 2003.
Shortly before the Sun Devils' season opener against Texas-San Antonio on Jan. 31, Wells said her team would be one that would feature its position players while the young pitching staff would learn the ropes.
On April 13, after ASU had finished a weekend that saw two victories against the ranked Northern California schools, Wells said her team could match up with anybody in the nation with Serrano on the mound.
"I kind of had all my fingers and toes crossed [at the beginning of the year]," Wells said. "You never really know what you have until [a player] goes through a set of experiences. I was hopeful.
"Our pitching as a whole has been well above average and certainly I think we'd have to rank Serrano as excellent."
In just three months this season, Serrano has tallied more achievements than many pitchers earn in a career. She has already been named the Pac-10 pitcher of the week, twice - a conference who regularly has eight teams ranked in the top 25 in the nation.
The first honor came in just the third weekend of the season (Feb. 10-16) when Serrano threw 22 innings in the Louisville Slugger Tournament with a 0.31 ERA. She also tossed her first career no-hitter against Iowa on Feb. 15.
"I didn't think I was going to get [the award], especially throwing my first no-hitter at the beginning of the season," Serrano said. "I thought maybe down the line somewhere in a couple years or whatever, but not [right away].
"My dad actually called me and told me I won it. I thought he was lying."
The second award came for the week of April 7-14, as she allowed just one run in 10 innings against Stanford and California.
While Serrano has just seen her first game experience this season, she has a year at the collegiate level under her belt as she made use of a redshirt year in 2002.
Every day in batting practice, Serrano would pitch to Wright and Brun, and the rest of the squad finished third in the country last season.
Serrano admitted that she decided to stay out of the lineup last year because of a predicted lack of playing time, but the experience gained has paid dividends this season.
"I remember the first time I threw to them; it was horrible," Serrano said. "After that it kept getting easier because I learned a lot from that."
Wells said that besides the skill gained, Serrano adopted a killer instinct from watching the success last year's team had from the sidelines.
"Being around that team helped her," Wells said. "That 'we're going to win' attitude we had last year is contagious and she's caught that. She has the confidence that has carried over even though she didn't throw a pitch last year."
Serrano added that she credits a lot of her success from watching last year's ace, Erica Beach. Typically a freshman athlete can only hear stories about the senior they replaced, but Serrano was able to witness Beach pitch every inning of the team's run through Regionals and the College World Series.
"It helped me a lot to see how [Beach] reacted to things on the field and how she pitched to different batters in different situations," Serrano said. "Even now when she comes to games I get nervous because I feel like I have to step it up and live up to what she left behind."
While Beach ended a stellar career last season, setting a single season school record with 33 wins - and finished with 79 in her career - she was the team's ace for only one season.
Wells said Serrano is the first freshman ace she's ever had in 14 years at ASU. If Serrano continues her current pace, she will own every pitching record in Sun Devil history. However, Serrano has bigger aspirations in the long collegiate career ahead of her.
"I hope I can break all those records that have been set," Serrano said. "But hopefully we get to the World Series a couple times, maybe even win it...at least one time."
It seems Serrano and ASU were destined to have each other. Ever since she was little there was no other school that Serrano had thoughts of winning a College World Series title with.
"I wanted to come here since I was 11 or 12," Serrano said. "When I was younger I wrote a paper saying I was coming here, and when [ASU] was playing at Fullerton I would always pass coach [Wells] little notes and stuff from newspaper articles about me."
Serrano got offers to pitch for such schools as Penn State, Michigan, Oregon, Oregon State and Florida State coming out of high school, but she had maroon and gold on the brain throughout the recruiting process.
Serrano even made a visit to Louisiana State and there was an ASU chair sitting in the coaches' office.
"I don't know where that came from but it was just there," Serrano said. "It was [an omen]. Then I came here and committed on my trip."
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Reach the reporter at christopher.drexel@asu.edu.
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