Darling named ‘Athlete of Week’

In two wins last week, senior Elk Lake pitcher Brooke Darling allowed a combined three hits and one unearned run, striking out 10 in a 10-0 win over Lackawanna Trail and 12 in a 15-1 victory against Susquehanna.

In the process, the right-hander notched her 50th career win and her 700th strikeout as first-place Elk Lake improved to 8-0 in Division III.

Darling will attend Columbia University in the fall to study chemistry and continue playing softball.

For her accomplishments, she has been named the Scranton Times-Tribune ‘Athlete of the Week.’

School: Elk Lake.

Family: Mother, Lori; father, Terry.

What contributed to your decision to attend Columbia? What are you looking forward to most next year? The coach at Columbia saw me at a tournament last year. When I visited, I really liked it there. I was looking for a place that had good academics and athletics. And I’m really excited to be in New York City.

What’s working well for you this season so far? My rise ball and my drop ball are both working really well. Our coach (Tony Blaisure) is calling good pitches.

You have said you have six different pitches you can go to. Have you worked on any different ones? We’ve been throwing a lot more drops this year. They work a lot better at 43 feet than they do at 40.

Now that you’re in the season, has that extra few feet impacted your game at all? Yeah, my pitches work better at 43 feet. They have more time to break. Pitching-wise, it’s a lot better.

Your team combined for 25 runs over two games. Is it comforting to know your offense is producing while you’re doing so well on the mound? We’ve hit a lot better this year, which is a lot more relaxing than last year when you’re trying to make sure we scored.

What do you think is the difference? We’ve been hitting in the mornings before games and doing two-a-day practices. I think that’s why we’ve been hitting better.

What do you need to do in order to keep being successful this season? We have to keep hitting well and work on our defense a bit. We haven’t been outside a whole lot because of all the rain. We do inside practices, but it’s hard to do defense inside. We do a lot of hitting.

You had two big milestones as well. First off, what does that mean for you? It feels good to get that, but I think it’s more important for our team to do well than me individually.

You’re a senior this year. Does that add something your accomplishments? Yeah, it’s good to go out with those kind of things.

What is something you’d want to take with you from your time at Elk Lake? We had a really good team this year. We all really get along, and I hope that we all get along next year. I’ve talked to a lot of the girls at Columbia, and they all seem really nice. I hope we have good team chemistry, like we do this year.

What is Elk Lake‘s team dynamic like this year? We have a lot of younger girls on the team, and the seniors are really good about involving them and encouraging them. A lot of us are friends outside of softball. It helps on the field. It’s easy to talk to them because you are friends with them and you have a lot in common.

Goals for the rest of this season: I’d just like to keep pitching well, and I hope we make it to the district game this year.