Even compared with the high expectations for Division I-bound student athletes, Hereford senior pitcher-shortstop Erin Collins has a lot on her plate.

The three-year starter, a first-team All-Metro pick last spring, will play softball at Rutgers after her final season with the Bulls. During the offseason, she plays and trains with the 18-under Newtown Rock Gold team, which has 11 other players committed to Division I programs. She’s also a four-year varsity starter and three-time captain on the volleyball team, where she earned second-team All-Metro honors as an outside hitter this past season.

Off the field (and the court), she’s a member of the National Honor Society, Science National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta, a national mathematics honors society. She’s vice president of Kids Helping Hopkins, a fundraising and support group for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. In college, she plans to major in mathematics and engineering.

So where does training to be one of the metro-area’s top softball players fit into all of this?

“It’s whenever you can get the time,” Collins said.

The sport is certainly demanding. After the regular season ends and the state champions are crowned in late May, summer ball begins shortly thereafter. Then it’s on to fall ball and winter training, both with club and high school teams.

“That’s the great thing about softball,” said Eastern Tech senior pitcher Jodie Bronushas, “is that it never ends.”

Bronushas, who also plays volleyball during the winter, exercises regularly on her own and visits a batting and pitching coach once a week. She also competes for the Parkville Thunder 18U, which included former teammate Allison Meyers and graduated C. Milton Wright pitcher Morghan Fulton — both first-team All-Metro picks last season.

Playing for a club not only allows her to stay on top of her game, but to compare herself with some of the best players in the state.

“You do see a lot of the same players that you do during the school season, so it’s cool to see how they’re also progressing,” said Bronushas, who ranks second all-time in wins and strikeouts for the Mavericks. “You get to compete at a different level.”

The offseason also comes with the thrill of improvement and experimentation. Without the fear of affecting her team’s performance, Bronushas focuses on increasing her pitch speed by extending her stride. She also started receiving lessons from a batting coach for the first time this year, and while it’s hard to visualize how hits off a tee or in a cage might play out on the field, the feeling of success is unmistakable.

“‘Oh, you rolled your hands,’ and then you fix it, and it’s just a whole new world,” she said.

Collins’ offseason is similarly demanding. Her schedule includes one three-hour team practice at Hereford, as well as two training sessions (which include drills and strength and agility exercises) per week with her Newtown Rock teammates. At home, she practices at least three times per week, such as hitting off a tee in her backyard, and exercises about four times per week.

“I think a lot of people probably wouldn’t work as much as I do, or probably wouldn’t put in the same time as I do, but I think it’s just very valuable,” she said. “Now that I’ve signed to play softball in college, I’ve definitely put in more effort. I want to be the best I can going into my freshman year trying to earn that playing time.”

Athletes can certainly train their bodies for peak performance, but what about fine-tuning their schedules? When it comes to effective time management, Collins might have a leg up on the competition thanks to, well, physics.

For the past two years, Collins and her Hereford teammates have won the Fermi problem round at the Central Maryland Physics Olympics, held annually at Liberty. A Fermi problem, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, requires approximate calculations with little or no data. For example, how many grains of rice would fill the Grand Canyon? Or, for last year’s Star Wars-themed competition, how many pennies would fit inside the Death Star?

Scientists use Fermi estimates to explore a problem before setting out to determine a precise answer. Collins acknowledges she’s never thought about trying to find her perfect school/sports/social life balance with this method, but perhaps she might if she finds the time.

One crucial part of the equation, however, is being able to forget everything for a while.

Collins has a friend with an outdoor volleyball court, which has become a getaway when softball practice starts to wear thin.

“Sometimes, when you’re doing the same thing all the time, you get kind of sick of it for a little bit,” she said. “So definitely taking a step back and doing something else and enjoying something else for a little while is good.”

For Bronushas, her friends and family are there to step in, taking her out to eat or just to relax, if they think she’s getting overwhelmed. Those breaks are crucial, but she’s careful not to let them become too frequent. There’s a schedule to be followed, and goals to meet.

“Of course there are days when you don’t want to go work out. Laying in bed and watching Netflix would be so much better,” Bronushas said. “But, at the end of the day, it’s a routine. I don’t really second guess it.”

cdoon@baltsun.com

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