WSU notes: Wichita State softball player Erin Carney happy to return to the game

Erin Carney endured two knee surgeries and started her student teaching in the past year. Life after college looked so close. Perhaps it was time to put away her Wichita State softball uniform.

“I’m not a quitter,” she said. “For me to just walk away, I knew I would have had a lot of regrets.”

On Friday, the Shockers opened their season in Texas and Carney started in left field in the opener, a 3-2 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. That completed a year in which she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee playing in the her alumni basketball game at Andale High about a month before the 2014 season.

She spent seven weeks on crutches and then needed another surgery in August to repair her meniscus, which she tore at some point without realizing it during her recovery period. Last fall, she started her student teaching at South High and Peterson Elementary, teaching physical education.

“There was nobody around,” she said. “I went to jump-stop and it just blew. That’s kind of how it always happens. I got a little bit of a taste of life after sports.”

Between the second surgery and teaching, she went more than a year without practicing.

Carney put that life off for a few more months, factoring in the January job market and the prospects of another strong season for WSU, the preseason Missouri Valley Conference favorite. As a junior in 2013, she earned All-MVC honors and national academic honors and led WSU with a .290 batting average.

“The biggest thing that it’s going to take for her is continuing to see live at-bats,” WSU coach Kristi Bredbenner said. “She’s only a month in to live at-bats.”

Carney returns to the field a wiser athlete, more in-tune to attitudes and body language after watching for a year. She noticed how slamming a bat after a pop-up or a frustrated look after an error can turn the mood of a team.

“After being a teacher, you had to be in charge of a whole class and you become a little bit more mature and realize it’s not all about you,” she said. “Just because you strike out in a game or make one error, that does not define the whole game. A couple years ago, I would have been really mad at myself and probably shown it on my face. Now, it’s a lot easier to let it roll off my back and move on.”

In the past, almost — NCAA rules require WSU’s baseball team to tell recruits about its one-year probation handed down on Jan. 29. While the penalty doesn’t affect postseason play or scholarships, it remains an issue that coaches must deal with (you can be certain opposing coaches will use it against them). They started by calling athletes who signed in November to explain and calm their fears.

Beyond that, coach Todd Butler is happy to proceed with no more uncertainty. Last season, the NCAA suspended eight players on opening day.

“Now we can move forward,” he said. “On the baseball side, we’re through it.”

Last month’s First Pitch Banquet, attended by 524 people, provided a turning point, he said.

“That was probably the first boost of confidence, that I said ‘I’m so proud to be part of the city of Wichita, to be the Shockers head coach,’” he said. “Now we need to go do our part as a program and get back on that winning track. Hopefully, as we win this season, we’ll start to pack this stadium and really get this atmosphere back.”

Butler said he supports WSU’s appeal to the part of the NCAA punishment that requires the program to vacate wins and statistics compiled by the 21 players declared ineligible by the impermissible benefits violations.

Time to play D — Former Shockers Cleanthony Early, Toure Murry and Nick Wiggins are in the NBA Developmental League.

Early, the second-round draft pick of the New York Knicks, was assigned to the Westchester Knicks on Thursday, his second stint in the D-League. He scored 26 points in Friday’s 126-101 win over Delaware.

Early played 16 games in New York and averaged 4.3 points.

Murry, who started the season with the Utah Jazz, averages 13.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.5 assists for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. He played for the Vipers in 2013 and helped win a D-League title.

Murry was named D-League player of the week in early February after averaging 19.0 points, 9.0 assists and 7.3 rebounds in three games. He played in one game for the Jazz before the team waived him in early January.

Nick Wiggins averages 6.4 points in eight games for the Idaho Stampede. On Friday, he scored 18 points on 8-of-9 shooting in Idaho’s 115-108 win over Los Angeles.

Jacobs honored — WSU women’s basketball player Kelsey Jacobs was named to the Academic All-District 7 team selected by sports information directors.

Jacobs, a senior from Fortuna, Calif., carries a 4.0 grade-point average as a graduate student in sport management after graduating with a 3.74 GPA in exercise science.

This story was originally published February 7, 2015 at 3:16 PM with the headline "WSU notes: Wichita State softball player Erin Carney happy to return to the game."