The RoundHouse | 5/17/2018 8:47:00 AM
By
Paul Suellentrop
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Asea Webber stopped eating dairy and bread, most painfully cutting out her favorite pasta dish. She ran up to three miles a day in her neighborhood in Mannford, Okla.
That is how she transformed herself from a designated hitter into Wichita State outfielder and helped the Shockers return to an NCAA regional. Wichita State (30-20) plays Oklahoma State (36-20) on Friday (1:30 p.m.) at Arkansas' Bogle Park.
"I've seen a whole different side of
Asea Webber this year," said
Morgan Palmer, her teammate and roommate. "She's funny, smiling all the time. She's never a 'poor, pitiful me,' player. She's always 'Hey, I'm out there and I'm playing and I'm going to make the most of it.'"
Making the most of her season means playing the field, which Webber missed last season after transferring from Oklahoma State. She started 19 games in 2017, mostly as the DH. She hit .267 with three doubles. She lacked her previous quickness and agility after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee as a freshman at OSU.
Last summer, she made changes to help recover from the surgery and to force her way into the lineup with a glove. She expected to play first base. When she came back in the fall, she ran better and started to work her way into the outfield.
"I lost like 15 pounds, because I wasn't really happy with myself," she said. "Coach (
Kristi Bredbenner) noticed that I got a lot faster and I was able to cover a lot more ground than I was last year. I was ready to play in the field."
Webber changed her diet, devoting Monday to preparing meals for the week.
"That was hard – I'm a big eater," she said. "My favorite food is fettucine alfredo. I had to give that up and that was tough. My favorite meal to prep is chicken and rice."
Bredbenner noticed the differences quickly.
"I didn't feel like she favored the knee as much," Bredbenner said. "When you're not putting as much pressure on the knee, that's because she slimmed down a little bit and that's huge. She's a much faster player and that's helped in center field and, especially, in base-running."
Webber worked on fly balls with Palmer after practices in the fall to give herself more experience in the outfield.
"We always talked about our goals and she said 'I want to be more than just a hitter,'" Palmer said. "She covers a lot of ground out there. She's definitely the captain of the outfield and she owns that role pretty well."
Webber played left field at Oklahoma State as a freshman. At WSU, she largely played at first when not DH'ing as a sophomore. This season, she played the corner outfield spots until mid-April, when she moved to center.
"I had never played in center field before," she said. "I love it. I like the atmosphere of – in my mind I really think that nothing is going to drop. I don't let anything drop."
Playing right and left field gave her the basics of center. She polished up her reads and drop steps to improve in center. She's started 12 of the past 13 games in center.
"I never felt like there was that big of an adjustment for her," Bredbenner said. "The one thing I will always appreciate from her – you tell her where to go and she's going to give you 100 percent and try to be the best she can at that position."
Webber is hitting .258 with three home runs, two against Oklahoma State. In a 5-3 win over OSU in March, Webber tied the game 3-all with a fifth-inning solo shot. Last month, her two-run home run gave the Shockers a 5-0 lead in a game they won 9-6.
In 2017, Oklahoma State thumped the Shockers 11-3 in their lone meeting. Webber sees a difference in this season's Shockers.
"It's awesome playing them," she said. "It's just awesome to see us from last year compared to this year. We're just so much more focused."
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
