It’s all in her head. The key for Cal Poly sophomore ace pitcher Anna Cahn isn’t remembering fundamentals or picking apart scouting reports, it’s maintaining focus. Although she’s known to be a light-hearted jokester off the field, it’s back to work once she hits the diamond.
“As soon as she steps across those white lines, it’s business, doesn’t matter who it is or where it’s at,” Cal Poly sophomore catcher Stephanie Correia said. “When we step off though, she’s a totally different person.”
Cahn is typically the last one waiting for Condon’s instruction to take their positions before hitting the bump. Attracting little attention, she casually strides to the mound, carefully tiptoeing over the line with her head down and grabs the ball. After slightly adjusting her cap and ponytail, she peers just underneath her visor as she throws a few easy tosses to Correia before she turns on the heat.
Each throw requires complete focus; Cahn sweeps the rubber with her right foot before she begins her jerky motion that her teammates like to criticize, Cahn said. She places her right foot in the middle of the rubber as she steps back with her left foot and extends her arms over her head, clasping the ball in her glove. Her arms violently thrust down and back up again as her arms spin like a windmill. Upon release, her head violently cracks back while her left arm slaps her thigh and abruptly stops, ending her follow through just as her arm passes her thigh. She repeats the exact process, leaving emotion out of the equation.
“I guess I have some quirks that they say that I do… they always make fun of me but it’s OK. I’m the one that everyone makes fun of, it’s fine,” Cahn admitted. “Well I’m kinda clumsy and I’m special. I guess when I pitch my head jerks back really badly; in between outs I do something with my foot… The coaches make fun of me but that’s fine.”
Cal Poly senior shortstop Melissa Pura jokes that Cahn is the lovable “four eyes” who players tend to poke fun at. “I mean look at the girl, she loves it, she embraces it; it’s so much fun, four eyes this, or Anna has a truck on her back running the bases,” Pura laughed.
The coaches call Cahn a “a little puppy dog” because of her optimistic and happy persona, Cahn said. “Sometimes it’s just eat, sleep, softball,” she said; Cahn reminds her teammates that softball is just a game.
“I make them smile, I feel it helps them realize that… there’s life other than softball,” she said. “Just be happy but when you are playing and try to be locked on, but still have some fun.”
Head coach Jenny Condon said it is that ability to have fun but also lock in during pivotal moments that make the Mustangs (28-9) (7-2 Big West Conference) so dangerous, resulting in a share of the Big West Conference lead.
“I think with only 14 (players on the team) everyone has played a role in both the business and fun aspect,” she said. “I think that them having a good time lightens the situation sometimes; it has been an important part of our team’s success this year, really not getting too uptight and too panicked.”
It was the bottom of the 11th inning when Cahn camly dug into the box with a runner in scoring position, needing a base hit to end the grueling deadlock against Santa Barbara on April 4. She pitched the entire game, amassing 180 pitches. Condon said she didn’t have her best stuff, but made the big pitches when it mattered. “Sometimes you just stick with what you got,” she added.
“The (coaches) were encouraging, telling me to push with my legs because my arm was kinda going out,” Cahn said. “I was pretty tired but you just have think of the mental aspect (of the game).”
Showing no signs of mental or physical fatigue, Cahn deftly watched two pitches miss the strike zone, a theme throughout the season. Then, the aluminum left her shoulder for the first time in 11 pitches, slapping the next two pitches foul. Cahn worked the count to 3-2 and pounced on an outside fastball that she roped over the leftfielder’s head, a pitch she has had trouble hitting, Condon said.
“It felt really good, we were working on it for many many weeks so finally (I saw) some production, it’s really good…” Cahn said. “Well I kinda knew that they were trying to throw me outside so I was just trying to look for that pitch; I usually take it so I was just trying to hit it the opposite way.”
The four-time 2009 Big West Pitcher of the Week added a “drop” curveball to her broad repertoire; she is armed with a drop and rising fastball, changeup, curveball and screwball. Freshman year allowed her to get her rhythm down, hone her pitches and know her catcher, Cahn said.
“She’s figured out how to pitch batters, what pitches (to throw) in different counts, how to set batters up, and that makes my job easier,” Correia said.
“It’s not all strikeouts; my defense has been working really hard, the whole infield is amazing, it’s hard to get a ball through them,” Cahn said, whose defense boasts a .972 fielding percentage. “The outfield has been making amazing plays, I attribute all of the success to the defense; they’re amazing.”
Cahn is a workhorse, her 175 total innings topping the Big West by nearly a 20-inning margin and also leads the conference with 18 wins. She has a 1.67 earned run average and holds opposing batters to a .213 batting average, both top five in the Big West. The crafty hurler has a 5.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, with 128 strikeouts to just 22 walks. She is also one of nine pitchers in the nation to throw a perfect game this year.
“I needed to be calm and relaxed and pitch like I knew I could pitch,” Cahn said about her perfect outing against Utah State. “(I needed to) pretend it was the first inning because if you think it’s the later innings, it’s not gonn’a happen.”
With high expectations coming to Cal Poly, the pressure got to Cahn. Freshman year, she went to a sports psychologist who reminded her to trust herself and her teammates, Cahn said.
The psychologist told Cahn to “know how good I am, know how good my defense and offense is, know that I don’t need to do it all,” Cahn said. “‘Cause my mind would be like, ‘I need to do everything,’ that’s how I felt last year, so just knowing that they’re behind me (helps).”
The designated hitter has put up some impressive numbers with the bat as well, hitting .321, slugging .462 (fourth best in the Big West) and leads the team with 23 walks.
“I love hitting, hitting is my little break from pitching,” Cahn said. “It’s been a rough time trying to balance it and separate my games, that took me all of last year.”
In two late-inning at bats during the 11-inning marathon against Santa Barbara, Cahn drew two walks on nine pitches and didn’t swing once. Cahn’s intimidating 6-foot-1 stature immediately implies power, however, patience is the staple of her game.
“The great thing about Anna is she’s only a sophomore and we look for her to improve in every part of her game…” Condon said. “We’re excited to see where she will peak out at.”
“The biggest place she leads is in the circle, you know when she sets the tone on the mound with her pitching, it kinda lays the groundwork for everything else, instills confidence in defense and offense.”
Each time Cahn prepares on deck, she takes striding, quick swings. Her hands sharply whip around her body. She looks at her bat, the pitcher, then the batter. Cahn wastes no time getting to the batter’s box, jogging just outside the box where she takes another look at her grip and goes through two more practice swings. The lefty takes six steps to the plate, digs in and taps the left corner of the plate with the end of her bat — she locks in. Her eyes dissect the pitcher’s every move, unfazed by chants from the dugout. During her fifth-inning at bat against Santa Barabara she watched four straight balls, ran down the first base line and greeted her first-base coach with a simultaneous leap and high five.
“She’ll put her two cents in all the time and people will respect what she has to say because she is doing it day in and day out,” Condon said.
The pitcher from Los Alamitos and nutrition major may look to pursue a career as a teacher, following in her father’s footsteps. With life after softball uncertain, Cahn strives to take advantage of the team chemistry that has the Mustangs ranked No. 22 in the nation.
“Everybody is on the same page, last year we were playing for ourselves… this year we playing as a team,” she said. “Our saying this year is commit to win, C-T-W, that’s what we want to do — commit to win.”