Former Blue Waves pitching ace tearing up Sunshine State Conference

The only softball pitcher to throw a perfect game in Blue Waves history is putting on a show in college — proving herself nearly unhittable this season on the mound for the Division II Tampa Spartans.

Julia Morrow, of Baiting Hollow, has come out the gates this season on a tear. In 44.2 innings of work, she’s only surrendered one earned run, pitching to an ERA of 0.16. She’s accumulated 77 strikeouts and opponents are batting a measly .100 against her. Last week, she was named Sunshine State Conference softball pitcher of the week— she’d notched two complete-game wins and a save, giving up just three hits overall, striking out 25 and holding a 0.00 ERA.

Bob Fox, who coached her in high school when, as a senior in 2010, she led the Waves to their first league title since 1976,  went down to Florida earlier this season to see her pitch. Fox, who is now retired, always keeps tabs on his former players and travels to see their games when he has the time.

“She was just awesome,” Fox said. “The only thing I could say was ‘wow’ when I saw her. She had total control of everything. I saw two games. The first game she struck out 11 and the second game, she struck out three in the last two innings. She was very, very impressive.” 

Morrow says she’s changed her approach in the pitcher’s circle to more of a get-out-of-my-way mentality. She’s out there with one goal in mind — to strike you out. And there is nothing the batter can do to change that. Morrow’s confidence is at an all-time high.

“I’m just letting all the BS go behind me,” Morrow said. “I don’t pay attention to it anymore.”

Recently, she has added a rise ball to her repertoire that has kept batters on their toes. She’s been working on it for awhile and it’s finally getting effective.

“It used to break but not jump,” Morrow said.

Morrow attributes a lot of her success to her pitching coach, who actually works one-on-one with her, as opposed to how it was at her first college, Central Connecticut State. Coming out of high school, Morrow chose Central Connecticut over Tampa but ultimately decided to transfer before the season started because of the poor communication from the head coach, little attention to detail by the pitching coach, and the typical northern chill.

But now at Tampa, she has rays of sunshine to look forward to every day.

“At Central Connecticut, the pitching coach showed up three times in the off-season and would work with all of us at once, so seven of us would be throwing at the same time,” Morrow said. “It just didn’t seem right. My pitching coach at Tampa comes two to three times a week during the off-season, comes to all our games, calls all our pitches, it’s just a different experience. She’s like my second mom.”

The 5′-10″ junior is currently the No. 2 starter next to senior Kayla Cox but essentially splits innings — one would start the other would finish and vice-versa. Cox has an ERA of .047.

Between the two of them, Tampa has a unbreakable pitching staff and Morrow hopes that this year is going to be the year they get out of the regionals and compete.

“Hopefully we can get out of regionals and into the super regionals and then thenationals,” Morrow said. “But our bats need to help us out too. We’ve been struggling a little bit with hitting and getting the clutch hits. I think as long as we can pitch, the bats will wake up at some point.”

Tampa currently holds an overall record of 12-3, at the top of the Sunshine State Conference.

Morrow