Crabtree’s Success Spikes With New Approach:

From a skyscraper’s antenna to a shoelace break,

UH ace finds ways to hone mental game

By SAM KHAN JR. – Copyright 2011 Houston Chronicle – April 14, 2011, 10:44PM

UH pitcher Amanda Crabtree grabs a pinch of dirt as part of her routine between innings.

After her warm-up pitches and pre-inning meeting with her infield mates, Amanda Crabtree reaches down at the back of the pitcher’s circle and grabs a pinch of dirt.

With her back to the plate, the University of Houston senior righthander then stands upright and searches for a focal point behind the center-field wall. When she’s at home in the Cougar Softball Stadium, it’s the white antenna that sits atop One Shell Plaza, nestled in the middle of the downtown skyline. Crabtree clears her mind and readies herself for battle before releasing the dirt and turning around to face the batter.

“It’s like I remove myself from the game,” Crabtree said, “and then come back into it.”

What has often followed Crabtree’s moment of meditation this season are strikeouts — lots of them. As the third-place Cougars (29-13, 11-4 Conference USA) prepare for a three-game home series against second-place Tulsa (32-9, 13-2) on Saturday and Sunday, they do so with Crabtree (16-7) in the midst of a career year.

Among nation’s best

The Kingwood High School product leads the nation in strikeouts per seven innings (12.2) and is in the top 10 in the NCAA in several categories, including ERA (1.05), strikeouts (267) and hits allowed per seven innings (2.5).

This season has been Crabtree’s best in large part because of her mental approach. In previous years, it was easy for the 6-foot veteran to allow her emotions to affect her performance or vice versa.

Now, if she disagrees with a call, she smiles at the umpire. The intensity of her focus yields a facial expression that often reveals little during the game. It can be hard to tell whether she’s nervously anticipating the final outs of a no-hitter (of which she has three this season) or if she’s frustrated by opponents who have connected on her pitches.

“She’s at the point where her focus is consistent, so she’s able to work,” UH pitching coach Abbie Sims said. “Before, her focus was very inconsistent, so her work was very inconsistent. She was kind of on a roller-coaster ride. Now she’s on that upward path, and she’s getting results because of it.”

Crabtree credits the improvements in her mental approach to sports psychologist Dr. Brian Cain, who works with the UH softball and baseball teams.

Routine keys consistency

After working with Cain, Crabtree began to integrate a consistent routine into her approach for every game. In addition to her pre-inning routine, she takes deep breaths before pitches, and she’ll even stop to tie her shoelace if she believes the game is moving too quickly (regardless of the status of her shoelace).

It’s hard to argue with the results.

“My head has made a world of difference,” Crabtree said. “Doing the simple things, like having that focal point, taking that deep breath, tying that shoe – they are the smallest things, but it keeps the game (steady) instead of riding the roller coaster.”

sam.khan@chron.com

 

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Mind Over Batter For University of Houston:

Softball Team Stresses Mental Approach, Focus

 

By SAM KHAN JR. – Copyright 2011 Houston Chronicle – May 26, 2011, 11:09PM
Photo By: JAMES NIELSEN

Kyla Holas found an edge for her team when UH baseball coach Todd Whitting introduced her to sports psychologist Dr. Brian Cain in the fall.

The mental aspect of softball has long been of importance to Houston coach Kyla Holas.

She’s never been one to downplay her team’s mental approach and stability. To her, it’s as important as the names that fill out the lineup card each day.

That has been a focal point before, but this year, Holas pushed its importance to the forefront. And it’s one of the key reasons the Cougars (43-16) are playing today as they prepare for their NCAA tournament super regional series against Oklahoma State (40-17), which begins at 6:05 p.m. in Stillwater, Okla.

“In years past we worked on it, but I still think that we put physical things over that,” senior pitcher Amanda Crabtree said. “I think this year, we’re putting our mentality over everything.”

To hear the players tell it, it has made a difference.

Holas, in search of her 399th and 400th career wins since starting the Cougars softball program from scratch in 2001, was searching for a way to help the players find a mental edge. She found it when UH baseball coach Todd Whitting introduced her to sports psychologist Dr. Brian Cain in the fall.

Whitting worked with Cain for several years while he was associate head coach at TCU under Jim Schlossnagle. He said Cain — a former college baseball player — was a huge part of what the Horned Frogs accomplished in recent years, including reaching the College World Series last year.

“I flew him in to our first team meeting after I got the (UH) job,” Whitting said. “That’s how important I think he is; he talked to the team before I did. The mental game is one of the most underrated things that is emphasized in all of sports, in my opinion.”

Holas checked in with another colleague, Alabama softball coach Pat Murphy, who has employed Cain’s services. Murphy was an assistant coach at Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) in the early 1990s when Holas was an All-American pitcher there. Murphy had good things to say about Cain, so with his and Whitting’s endorsements, Cain seemed like the right fit.

The players have referenced their work with Cain this season. Crabtree, junior outfielder Melissa Gregson and senior outfielder Katy Beth Sherman — all of whom are having stellar seasons — are just a few of the Cougars who say they have benefited from working with Cain.

“It has kept everyone mentally focused in the right way without letting our nerves get to us big-time,” Gregson said. “(In the regionals), I don’t know a single girl that was like ‘Oh, I’m so nervous.’

“We were mentally focused and prepared for the weekend.”

And they aren’t bothered by the possible stigma that comes from the team working with a psychologist.

“I don’t think it’s weird at all,” Sherman said. “I think it’s great and it’s given us an upper hand.”

sam.khan@chron.com

 

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Crabtree Saving Her Best For Last

By Jesus Acevedo – Published on: Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Senior Amanda Crabtree has been the cornerstone of the UH pitching staff through 33 games this season. With 211 strikeouts, Crabtree is just one pitch behind the Conference USA leader, Tony Paisley, of East Carolina.

Courtesy of UH Athletics

Yogi Berra once said baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half physical. It seems the same could be said for baseball’s sister sport of softball, as Senior pitcher Amanda Crabtree adopted the mantra and is having her best season yet.

Crabtree has 12 wins, six losses and a 1.14 ERA. She has also recorded 211 strikeouts and three no-hitters. Monday, Crabtree was awarded with her third Conference USA Pitcher of the Week award for her stellar weekend performance at Southern Miss. She allowed no runs in 11.1 innings of play, and walked just three batters.

She credits her success to her new mental edge.

“In the past three years my mentality has been the thing that has held me back,” Crabtree said.

“They worked with me and worked with me and this year everything started to click. Honestly, it has been the missing puzzle piece.”

This season, the softball team has been working with sports psychologist Brian Cain to gain a better understanding of the mental aspects of the game.

“One of the main things he talks about is having a routine,” Crabtree said. “If you watch me pitch you can see that I kind of do the same thing over, and over, and over. I just hope every game is a consistent outing.”

Crabtree’s hard work has paid off. In February, Crabtree pitched her first and second no-hitters of her college career and earned back-to-back C-USA and USA Pitcher of the Week honors, as well as being named to the QTI Powers Invitational All-Tournament team.

Freshman Haley Outon was the catcher for Crabtree’s no-hitters and said Crabtree’s ability to follow her routine makes her a leader.

“She really knows how to get out of any mental block she may have,” Outon said. “She’s good at picking herself up.

“We kind of all look at her as the ‘momma’ of the team and follow her. It’s great because when she does well we all do well.”

Crabtree transferred from Oklahoma State in 2008, and head coach Kyla Holas said she sees a different pitcher than the one who first set foot at UH.

“She’s more of a pitcher now instead of a thrower,” Holas said. “I think she sometimes lets some mental mistakes control her, but she has worked hard to step that up. She can throw anything at anytime and make it count with the physical fundamentals she puts in her pitches.”

Crabtree grew up playing a variety of sports besides baseball, including swimming and volleyball. Though she ultimately settled with softball, her experiences in other sports have aided her success.

“Swimming has very intense training so it prepared me for some of the things that you go through the older you get,” Crabtree said. “I think that everything I’ve gone through in my past has helped get to where I am today in softball.”

Crabtree is an elementary education major and said once her college playing days are over she will give softball lessons, in large part to stay in touch with the game.