Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 4 | March 2019

42 Inside Hokie Sports Visit hokiesports.com/hokiekidsclub to join! KIDS CLUB THE OF VIRGINIA TECH ATHLETICS Official “I met him after a month and said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to come back.’ I told him that I hadn’t thrown a ball, and it was going to be rough. He was like, ‘It’s fine. You have all fall. It’s important in the spring that you’re good, but we have all fall to fix you.’” Duff thus rejoined the program at the beginning of the fall semester. Her teammates, for the most part, welcomed her back, which came as no surprise considering she lived with of them, so they knew of her intentions. The remaining skeptics were appeased when they saw what she offered the squad this fall during fall practices and games—a potential All-ACC-caliber player with the ability to help the program return to the NCAA regionals. She started the season opener against Wichita State and registered her first hit in 20 months with a single against the College of Charleston in the team’s fourth game. That started a string of six straight games in which she recorded a hit. In other words, she resumed what came naturally to her—playing softball and playing it well. “It didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” Duff said. “My shoulder was sore for a period of time. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long. It But Duff felt off course. She realized quickly that this wasn’t the path she wanted to take. “I just did three weeks,” she said. “I asked myself, ‘Do I want to kill myself for seven more weeks if I know that it isn’t what I want to do?’” While at OCS, she received a letter from teammate Kinsey Johnson—candidates’ use of cell phones is restricted at OCS. Johnson informed her of Director of Athletics Whit Babcock’s decision not to bring back Thomas and the subsequent hiring of Pete D’Amour from Kennesaw State. She wanted Duff to come back to the team and wanted her to reach out to D’Amour to make it happen. Duff pondered the idea and ultimately decided to contact D’Amour. He invited her to meet, with the thought of the two getting to know each other more rather than coming to an immediate decision on Duff’s future. At the time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to return, and he knew very little about her. “We talked about random things,” Duff said. “We talked about the previous year, talked about previous coaches, what made you leave, what did they do that you don’t want us to do … He told me he would contact me in about a month and talk about softball. Continued from page 40