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

inside.hokiesports.com 43 Relocating, Without the Interruptions When relocating your company, interruptions cost you money. With experience in all types of commercial moving, we’ll keep your operation running, on schedule. Get started today by calling (800) 336-9626 or visit lawrencemoves.com! M O V I N G GETTING TO KNOW… LAUREN DUFF Q: What is your dream vacation? LD: The Colorado Rockies or somewhere in Europe. I’m trying to get away from the coast. Q: What is your favorite place to eat? LD: I like Red Robin, but that’s the most generic restaurant ever. The burgers are really good. The steak fries are good. Unlimited steak fries, that’s the real thing. Q: If you could play another sport, what would it be, and why? LD: Probably volleyball, but I feel like I’m not tall enough to play volleyball anymore, so I probably wouldn’t be that good at it. But I enjoy playing recreationally. Q: What is your favorite form of social media? LD: I’m not a big social media person. I guess I check it a lot, but I don’t really post. I like Instagram. I just like looking people’s pictures and videos. Q: What is your favorite thing about being a Virginia Tech athlete? LD: I like the aesthetics here. The vibe that it gives off. Everybody is very nice, homey … Southern. was like riding a bike. You cannot ride a bike for a long time, and you get on it, and ‘Oh, I still remember how to ride a bike.’ It was kind of the same deal.” Behind her, the play of fellow seniors Caitlyn Nolan and Emma Strouth and the pitching of Keely Rochard, the Hokies won their first nine games to open the season. The start marked their best to open a campaign since winning nine straight to open the 2015 season. The team appears much more relaxed and confident with the new staff. The numbers reflect that, too. Yes, the Hokies haven’t faced the greatest of competition, but they entered a March 15 game against NC State hitting .353 as a team. “They [Tech’s coaches] take notes on everything,” Duff said. “I like it because it’s very structured. We have an infield coach, an outfield coach, a pitching coach and then Coach Pete, and they eachwrite notes every game. Then they tell their part—like the infield did this, the outfield did that, the pitchers did that. It’s nice to hear that … they always have something to say, regardless of if we win 13-0 or lose. They’re always critiquing something, but I like that. I like that they’re paying attention and watching and making sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing.” The sizzling beginning has theHokies thinking about the possibilities for a special season. None of the seniors have played in an NCAA regional—Tech’s last appearance came in 2015. Its last victory in a regional came in 2014. “I have a lot of confidence,” Duff said. “Our hitting is exponentially better than it’s ever been … Every single person on the team is cranking the ball. It doesn’t matter who’s in and who’s playing. Everyone is doing well.” Including Duff, who still plans on traveling the path toward a future FBI job. Her current plans call for working as a police officer following graduation in May. She has taken steps in that field, working as a seasonal public safety aide for the Ocean City Police Department in Ocean City, Maryland in the summer of 2017 to gain some experience. The position only reinforced her desire. “It was a lot of fun,” she said. “It was my favorite job, which is why I still want to be a police officer. I loved that job. I want to do that job. I was a police officer, but I just didn’t have a gun. I had pepper spray. I got pepper sprayed …We had to get pepper sprayed to carry the pepper spray—and that was not fun. “I got to ride along with the police officers and search prisoners. I was in the prisoner transport wagon. I was the assistant person in the passenger seat, and we took them to jail. We arrested a few people. Handed out a few citations. It was fun.” Hopefully, the fun is just beginning, both for her and the Hokies. And hopefully, they’ll be plotting a course that neither could have imagined just a few short months ago.