Emma Mazzarone’s youth travel softball pitcher, Michelle Corn, said you have to be a little bit crazy to be a pitcher.
“I’ve always stuck with that,” Mazzarone said. “If you want the ball every game, there has to be something a little off.”
If Mazzarone wasn’t a little bit crazy, she might have folded under the pressure of her freshman year. Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour initially recruited her solely as a hitter. She pitched in high school and only threw around 64 mph.
“I didn’t really have that much spin and still the same command I have now,” Mazzarone said facetiously. “Not a good combo. … Then, I magically got a little bit better.”
D’Amour saw her at a travel tournament in California as a high school junior and told her they were going to use her in the circle at Virginia Tech. Her senior year, Tech hired pitching coach Josh Johnson, with whom she spoke throughout the process. Then, all of a sudden, she was in the circle against No. 3 Georgia three weeks into her freshman season.
“When they said I was starting against Georgia, [Emma Lemley] was sitting over there trying to calm me down,” Mazzarone said. “... I was like, whoa, these are all the girls I’m playing with and playing against were people that I was watching on TV growing up. I’m just in it now.”
She actually racked up two appearances against the Bulldogs that weekend. In the first game, she relieved Lemley in the fifth inning and lasted 1 ⅓ innings. She allowed one hit and no runs to pick up her third collegiate win. She started the second contest and went 3 ⅔ frames, during which she surrendered four runs and five hits, though she struck out four batters and walked none.
“That’s the first time I ever hit 70 [mph],” Mazzarone said. “And they were like, ‘Woah, we didn’t know we were getting this.’”
Bree Carrico got thrown into the fire, too. After redshirting during her true freshman year, D’Amour tossed her into the final two innings of the first game of the 2026 season against then-No. 12 South Carolina.
“[Carrico] was like, ‘All right, do you think I’m going to pitch in this game?’ And I was like, ‘Yep, just start getting prepared now,’” Mazzarone said. “So, at the beginning of the South Carolina game, she got told to warm up and she came up to me, and she was like, ‘I think I’m gonna go in.’ I was like: ‘Yes, you’re going in. You’re good.’”
With an 8-4 lead in the sixth inning, Carrico walked the first two batters she faced and loaded the bases, before working a popout to second base, a groundout to third and a flyout to center field. In the seventh, she gave up a one-out single, but accrued three strikeouts to end the game and give the Hokies a win over an SEC opponent.
“[She] just came off the field fired up,” Mazzarone said. “It was just awesome.”
Carrico didn’t play during her true freshman season. She had some conversations with the coaching staff during the fall of 2024 that she would likely not get many innings in the circle. At the start of the spring ahead of the season, D’Amour and the other coaches told her they planned to redshirt her and preserve a year of eligibility.
“It was disappointing. I’ve never been in that position in my life when I hadn’t pitched, so it was odd for me,” Carrico said. “But it was more humbling than anything. I was telling myself, ‘OK, you actually have to work on something. I’ve had to work, but not as much as I had to when I got here.’ I think that was so humbling and like, ‘OK, I have to put in work, I have to do all this stuff to get to where I want to be.’ And that’s fine, because I want to be here, and I have so many people around me that push me every day.”
After another year of lifting, conditioning and practicing, Carrico’s velocity improved. She estimated her pitch speed peaked around 58 or 59 mph last season; now, it’s in the mid-60s.
Carrico had to regain her confidence, though. Last summer, she went home with her mom and stepdad and worked on it. She came back in the fall and her teammates supported her through the process.
“We do goals for the fall,” Mazzarone said. “And I go, ‘Why don’t you put as one of your goals to be a starting pitcher for the weekend rotation?’ And [Carrico] looked at me and she was like, ‘You really think so?’ It’s like, yes, Bree.
“I think everyone giving her that little push that she needed, of confidence from last year to this year. I think it showed. In the first game, she finally realized: ‘Yes, I belong on this team to pitch here. I’m one of the best pitchers on this team and in the ACC.’”
Carrico is entering the weekend with an ACC-best 1.25 earned run average. She has a 12-0 record and 104 strikeouts across 83 ⅔ innings pitched.
“Last year, I did not have half the confidence that I have now in myself,” Carrico said. “I’m able to trust myself when I go out there and just know that I’m good. I don’t think I could have said that to myself last year.”
Many of Mazzarone’s improvements have come on the mental side. She can throw 74 mph, but she doesn’t need to. The junior will warm up at 100 percent effort to work through her adrenaline, then pitch in games somewhere around 70 percent effort. At that point, she throws with more spin and still hits 71 mph. During games, Mazzarone has found ways to calm herself down — especially in the first inning.
“I always find a point in the outfield that I stare at for about one second to reset and turn around, just to get over whatever happened the pitch before,” Mazzarone said. “I definitely do think it’s mental, because you have to be able to calm yourself down. When you get flustered or you’re in a high situation game and you get really amped, it’s kind of hard not to throw really hard. It’s finding a reset point.”
Lemley is a graduate assistant for Virginia Tech softball, helping pitching coach Josh Johnson with his duties. In between seasons with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League’s Carolina Blaze, she is in Blacksburg assisting with the Hokies. She sits in on practices and aids Johnson, but her main role is spending games in the bullpen.
Johnson and head coach Pete D’Amour formulate a pitching plan before each game. For example, they could plan for Mazzarone to start the game, then for Carrico to enter in the fourth inning and finish it. Everything is subject to change, but Lemley is in the arm barn for everything the process entails.
“My job is to make sure they are mentally prepared and physically warm, but more like they’re mentally prepared to go into the game and feel out the game, because I’m the only one back there with them,” Lemley said. “Making sure we can feel out: ‘OK, you might go in in three batters. Hey, if this girl gets on, you might go in, so make sure you’re mentally prepared for that.’”
Mental preparedness differs for each person. Lemley, through her collegiate and professional experience, has learned to visualize herself in a game, so she knows how to anticipate any situation. In her mind, being mentally prepared means staying in the present. It means focusing on getting one out at a time, rather than the 21 outs required to end a game. Throw the best pitch possible one time, then repeat. Plus, she has learned to recognize visual cues.
“The more you watch softball, now more than ever, you just pick up on body language,” Lemley said. “If somebody gives up a hit, you can tell even the slightest drop in their shoulders if they’re disappointed. I have spent so much time around these girls, like, I can tell by the look on their face if they’re even the slightest bit frustrated. Then, it’s like, ‘OK, hey, let’s reset.’”
Mazzarone, as a hitter, has also learned to notice body language while in the batter’s box, and can apply it to the circle.
“If I’m in a hitter’s count, if I’m in a 2-1 count, 3-1 count, you can tell when girls start to lose a bit of their confidence,” Mazzarone said. “That’s one thing I’m aware of when I’m pitching, too. If I just gave up a single-run home run and I’m sitting there like, ‘Bleh,’ they’re obviously out to get me now. They’re ready for me.”
Mental preparedness is something Carrico has learned through her redshirt freshman season. On March 21 against NC State, Sophie Kleiman started in the circle. Carrico relieved her before Kleiman obtained an out, since the Wolfpack had scored two runs in its first four batters. In her first appearance at Tech Softball Park, Carrico entered on short notice — before she could mentally prepare for the outing.
“I was a little erratic; I was all over the place,” Carrico said. “And also being my first time pitching at home, my heart rate was up really high.”
Carrico settled down. She finished six innings of Tech’s 11-3 run-rule win — a one-hit shutout during which she struck out six batters and walked two.
“I think after that first inning, I just needed to calm myself down, which I did well — but I think I should have done that before I went in the first inning,” Carrico said.
Lemley is there to guide the two of them — plus Virginia Tech’s other arms — through the process.
“From being a teammate to Mazz and Bree to then being able to coach them, I love that they trust me like I’m their coach,” Lemley said. “They come to me with a lot of questions in-game, like: ‘What would you do? Do you see anything I’m doing?’ So, I am very thankful that they trust me in that role and I am so proud of them.
“They’re doing great this year, and I hope that anything I can give them is helping them. They’re doing this all themselves. They work so hard, and they’re doing so great. So, I’m proud of them.”