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VARSITY VIEWS A LOT ON HER PLATE SWEET SWING Bell set a school record with her .423 average last season. Hard-hitting Cassidy Bell paces PSU���s softball team Mark Selders/Penn State Athletic Communications | here are a couple of turning points in Cassidy Bell���s transition from pretty good college softball player to maybe the best offensive player in Penn State history. The first came a couple of years ago, when she switched hitting coaches back in her native California. The second came last spring, when she had her appendix taken out. It was barely a week into her junior season when the pain erupted in Bell���s abdomen. ���The flu was going around,��� she said, ���so everybody thought it was that.��� The pain was severe but mostly subsided after a day, and Bell went nearly a week mostly ignoring it. Then, she said, ���it got worse, and localized, and that���s when we knew something was wrong.��� Within 20 minutes of being examined by a doctor, she was being prepped for surgery. Bell missed 18 games in the wake of her emergency appendectomy, which wasn���t bad considering doctors had initially told her she���d have to miss six weeks ��� roughly half the season. She admits she ���took it easy��� in her first T few games back, but Bell was quickly playing at full speed ��� and better than ever. She finished the 2012 campaign batting .423, a single-season school record, and was the only field player to earn unanimous first-team All-Big Ten honors. Unencumbered by rebellious internal organs, Bell has been even better in 2013. The only player to appear in and start every one of the team���s first 28 games, the senior center fielder through early April was batting a scorching .439, and with 14 home runs she was already close to eviscerating the school season record of 16. Her post-surgery tear has her eyeing some career marks, as well: At press time, Bell needed just four homers to pass the Penn State record of 34 set by Shannon Salzburg in 1998, and her career batting average was up to .347, within sight of Nan Sichler���s program record of .369. It���s been quite a run for a West Coast kid who defied all logic by leaving the softball-friendly weather of her home state to suit up for the Nittany Lions. ���I played travel ball up and down the state, and I���d seen the whole thing, so I knew I wanted to get out of California,��� Bell said. ���My parents weren���t happy at first, but it���s been great.��� Bell���s biggest challenge upon arriving in Happy Valley might have been the weather. ���It snows where I live like once every 10 years,��� she said. ���I wasn���t used to having to wear so many layers to play.��� That transition was eased somewhat by the heated dugouts in Nittany Lion Softball Park, which opened in 2011, although it didn���t seem to bother her as a freshman in 2010, when she was a starter from opening day and hit a team-best .329. She went home that summer to Bakersfield, a couple hours north of Los Angeles, and found a new hitting coach closer than the one she���d been driving three hours each way to work with while in high school. He tweaked the angle at which she held her bat and, more important, had Bell focus on anticipating pitches and swinging for power. The results were obvious: As a sophomore, her average dipped to .280, but she more than doubled her doubles and drilled seven home runs, up from just one homer her freshman year. As a junior last spring, her average shot up nearly 150 points, and she hit nine homers despite missing a third of the season. ���I felt like it all came together,��� she said. Bell figures to garner serious AllAmerica consideration in her final season, but individual accolades are overshadowed somewhat by team struggles. Through early April, the Nittany Lions stood just 7-21 overall. Bell remains positive, pointing to a number of younger players (like freshman pitcher Macy Jones, who had six of those wins while batting .321) she hopes will contribute more as the season goes on. She knows she can only do so much by herself. She also knows she���s doing everything she can. ���I know some people have one good season and then come back the next year and have a letdown, and I know some people get senioritis,��� she said. ���I wanted to come in and work 10 times harder. I feel like all the hard work is paying off.���

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