To Kelly Saco, having an ace on a college softball team is not unique. The measure that separates the good teams from the great ones is their No. 2 starter.

‘Almost every team has at least one frontline starter,’ said Saco, SU’s starting first baseman, ‘but the successful teams are the ones that have an elite No. 2 also.’

For the Syracuse softball team, that elite No. 2 could be sophomore Stacy Kuwik. After ace and No. 1 Jenna Caira, Kuwik could be the second piece that pushes SU back to the NCAA tournament and beyond. She showed flashes last season, and she’s looking to fully solidify herself in that crucial second role this season.

‘It’s a catch-22,’ SU head coach Leigh Ross said. ‘Because while you want to throw your best two starters out there as much as possible, you’re going to struggle if one of them isn’t performing well.’

Last season, Caira’s dominant performance during SU’s hotly-contested stretch run culminated with her winning the Most Outstanding Player award of the Big East tournament.

Buried in the Orange’s postseason run, though, was the emergence of Kuwik. As a freshman, Kuwik pitched nearly as well as Caira during SU’s run to the Big East championship.

It didn’t start that way, though. Following a 4-1 decision against Iowa last March 16, Kuwik sat at 1-4 with a 4.62 earned run average. Over the course of the season’s final two months, however, Kuwik turned her season around by going 5-6 and lowering her ERA by more than a full run. (She finished the regular season at 3.31.)

‘Q stepped up huge for us,’ Saco said of Kuwik. ‘She took a load on stepping into that spot as a freshman, and she took a lot of pressure off Jenna to win every game she started.’

If Kuwik can carry her late-season emergence into the 2011 campaign, SU will have the one-two pitching centerpiece all softball teams crave. And Ross is fully confident in her rising sophomore.

‘Stacy doesn’t get as much attention because she’s our No. 2,’ Ross said. ‘But I think we have the top two starters in the Big East and probably the northeast region.’

After a 3-0 start to the 2011 season — including a seven-inning, one-run complete game effort against Texas-San Antonio — Kuwik made her coach’s proclamation ring true.

But in the final game of last weekend’s Bama Bash tournament against now-No. 2 Alabama, Kuwik was lit up for six earned runs in just 2 2/3 innings of work. Though the lackluster effort ballooned her ERA to 4.34, Kuwik is accepting it as a learning experience.

‘They were the most potent offense I’ve ever faced,’ Kuwik said. ‘But facing such a quality opponent so early in the season will benefit me once we start Big East play and hopefully a run at the (NCAA) tourney.’

In many ways, Kuwik’s emergence mirrors the emergence of the SU softball program. And if Syracuse is to top last season’s first round NCAA tournament exit, Kuwik will have to continue working toward joining Caira as an elite frontline starting pitcher. No one is more aware of that than Kuwik.

‘Just look at the U.S. Olympic team,’ Kuwik said. ‘The pitchers are always the catalysts for their medal runs. First, it was Jennie Finch and Lisa Fernandez, and now it’s Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman.

‘I need to be on Jenna’s level in order for our team to achieve our goals.’

jdsaffre@syr.edu

Published on February 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jarrad: jdsaffre@syr.edu