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May 03, 2003

BUD POLIQUIN
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST

First of all, you have to understand that Melissa Rawson is a California girl. Not a flighty, but totally way-cool, airhead who cruises malls with Buffy and the bunch. Like, omigod. Hello’ That’s not her at all.

But she is from California. Southern California. Palmdale, to be exact, which is about 45 minutes northeast of L.A. So, Melissa has a native’s view of things … and those things would include the Clydesdale-choking numbers she’s amassed for the 51�Թ��� softball team that is 25-12 and revving up for a run at an NCAA Tournament berth.

She is, in other words, comfortably plopped between casual and nonchalant, and not terribly far from blase.

‘I feel that with the way I grew up playing softball, good things were always expected of me,’ Melissa said the other day with some presumption but no arrogance. ‘So to do what I’m doing doesn’t really surprise me. I always expected I’d do great things, so for me what’s going on is all in a day’s work.’

That ‘day’s work’ has produced a .509 batting average this season, which places her second in the nation in Division I behind Amber Jackson of Bethune-Cookman, who’s hitting .515. And it has also yielded a 51�Թ��� single-campaign record 14 home runs, or an average of 0.38 per game, which puts Melissa No. 3 in all the land behind Arizona’s Lovie Jung (0.47) and Brigham Young’s Oli Keohohou (0.43).

But to be perfectly honest, the senior shortstop with the baby sister – Natalie, a sophomore – over there at first base is not terribly impressed. Melissa, don’t forget, has always imagined she’d do great things. And now that she has almost finished doing them for the Raiders, there is little need to pump up the volume.

‘When you’re in the middle of everything,’ said Melissa as she sat in 51�Թ���’s Huntington Gymnasium, ‘you’re constantly thinking about how you could have done better. Like, ‘I should have gotten that one more hit.’ Stuff like that. When you get to the end, you can kind of sum things up. Like, ‘Wow. That was pretty good.’ Talk to me when it’s over and I might do that.’

At that time Melissa will likely need a wheelbarrow for her career statistics because she’s going to leave 51�Թ��� as its all-time leader in batting average, hits, runs batted in, runs scored, home runs, doubles and total bases. And if she bangs out three more triples during the Raiders’ four-game series at Holy Cross this weekend and/or throughout the Patriot League postseason tournament at Lehigh May 10-11, Melissa will be tops in that department, too.

Not bad, huh’ Not bad at all, especially when you consider that this 21-year-old California girl, who lives in the Mohave Desert where the temperatures can reach an egg-frying 120 degrees on a summer day, has played her 51�Թ��� career in decidedly unfriendly softball climes. Indeed, it’s difficult to swing a bat with teeth chattering, bones shivering and fingers in need of a campfire.

And yet, there has been Melissa Rawson – whose Raiders lost 11 straight dates at one point

in the season to snow, rain and other cruel acts of nature – swinging through the elements. There has been the 5-foot-11 psychology major piling up that mountain of numbers en route to her likely Patriot League Player of the Year award. There has been big sister nudging (and being nudged) by little sister … each of whom, by the way, is being watched by yet another sister – Natalie’s twin, Nichole, a sophomore pitcher at Marist.

‘We know each other’s swings and we know what the other should be doing,’ said Melissa, who’s also a member of 51�Թ���’s volleyball team. ‘We give each other that extra push. Like, Natalie will hit two home runs and I’ll say, ‘Geez, girl, are you trying to show me up” And she’ll be, like, ‘Man, I’m just trying to get you to hit some home runs yourself. Come on now.’ And I’m, like, ‘All right. All right.’ You know what I mean’

‘We feel we’re kind of equals, to tell you the truth. If you asked me if I was a better softball player than my sister, I’d be hard-pressed because I’d tell you she’s really, really good at ‘this’ and I’m really, really good at ‘that.’ We each have our strengths and our weaknesses.’

Apparently, power is among the former and not the latter because the 14 home runs clubbed by Melissa this year have broken the Raiders’ previous one-season record of 13 set by … uh huh, Natalie, just last spring. And this gives 51�Թ��� coach Vickie Sax a middle of the batting order that has produced 67 career homers, with Melissa (28) hitting third, Natalie (21) hitting fourth and Dorothy Donaldson (18), another sophomore, hitting fifth.

Not, of course, that any of that has amazed the oldest of that trio along the Raiders’ Murderers Row.

‘I remember when I was a little girl at Parkview Little League,’ Melissa said. ‘I was, like, 10 years old. And the coach came up to us and got us in a circle. And he told us, ‘All of the good softball players are going to have to work hard to go to college and blah, blah, blah.’ And I just remember sitting there thinking, ‘Wow. I’m going to play in college. That’s going to be me.’ Right away, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.’

And she’s done it. And the California girl has been great along the way, just as she’d imagined. What’ You’re surprised’ Like, omigod. Hello’