SEATTLE — As a girl growing up in Snohomish, Trysten Melhart got hooked on University of Washington softball. She attended UW camps and clinics, loved watching the team play, and dreamed of one day becoming a Husky herself.
As dreams sometimes do, this one came true.
Melhart became a top player at Snohomish High School, and was good enough to draw the attention of college recruiters. But in her mind there was really no choice because “Washington had always been my No. 1 place,” she explained. “I just fell in love with the school, the atmosphere (of the program) and the city. I love Seattle, so it was just a good fit for me.”
Playing college softball “is what I always wanted to do,” she added, “and I feel grateful that I get this opportunity.”
A 2014 Snohomish graduate, she enrolled at Washington that fall and as a freshman made almost an immediate impact. A part-time player early in the season, she became more of a regular in the second half and did well enough to be an All-Pacific-12 Conference honorable mention selection.
Her sophomore season has been even better. Melhart has started 35 of Washington’s 37 games and has a .404 batting average, No. 2 on the team behind Kelly Burdick (.405), and with a .473 on-base percentage.
Melhart, an outfielder, bats leadoff for the Huskies and her job is simply to get on base, which might mean fouling off pitches to draw a walk. Or dropping a drag bunt and using her speed to beat it out. Or being a slap hitter — using a short, running-start swing — and again sprinting to first base. Or using a full swing in hopes of finding a hole or gap.
“Batting leadoff is stressful for me because there’s so much relying on my shoulders,” she said. “But I like having the role and the responsibility … and that the coaches have faith in me that I can do it. Because once I get on base, that’s an automatic momentum starter for the rest of the team.”
According to her coach, Melhart is already a good player with the chance to be even better. She is, said Heather Tarr, Washington’s 12th-year head coach, “about a quarter of the way to her full potential. I think she has a lot left to grow into and learn and become.
“Offensively, she has a lot more in her,” Tarr went on. “The art of hitting .400 is being able to lay a bunt down on anybody, any time, anywhere, any situation. She can do it, but she just hasn’t developed the mentality to do that yet. … With a bit more guidance and us telling her what we want her to do, she’s going to become that full triple threat where it’s 33 percent hitting, 33 percent slapping and 33 percent bunting.”
Under Tarr, Washington softball has enjoyed a stretch of remarkable success. The Huskies have been to 11 straight regional tournaments (and counting previous UW coaches, the string is 22), nine super regionals and four College World Series, including the 2009 NCAA championship.
This season the Huskies are 28-9 overall and 9-6 in the always competitive Pac-12. Last week’s national polls ranked Washington ninth and 11th, though the team’s ratings percentage index (RPI, which factors in strength of schedule) puts the UW third nationally and tops among conference teams.
All this has the Huskies thinking good thoughts about the upcoming postseason.
“There are definitely high expectations for us,” Melhart said. “But I think we all handle them very well because we know how well we can play and how important it is to each of us. Our coaches think very highly of us. It’s amazing that they have that much faith in our team. So I think we just embrace that and have faith in ourselves, too.”
Melhart and her teammates have watched video of the 2009 team’s journey to the NCAA title, “and it gets me very emotional,” she said. “We all want to be there, too.”
Though Washington is young — just seven seniors on the 22-player roster — “our expectations are limitless,” Tarr said. “We don’t have any expectations. We don’t put limits on ourselves. We’re going to go as far as we can go.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
