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Penguin pitcher Casey Crozier softball's biggest winner
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YSU's Casey Crozier
Special to the Vindicator
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YSU freshman Casey Crozier has gone 7-3 with a 2.39 ERA in 12 games, helping the Penguins get off to an 11-5 start this spring.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Last fall, Casey Cro- zier moved six hours from her home in Valparaiso, Ind., to Youngstown State University, where she started her freshman year as a nervous teenager still rehabbing the torn ACL she suffered just months earlier.
Normally, Crozier would have spent hours calling, e-mailing or Skyping her mom and sister back home.
Problem was, they had weightier issues to deal with.
From Sept. 29 through Dec. 18, Crozier’s mother, Marci, and sister, Courtney, lived in California as contestants on NBC’s reality show “The Biggest Loser.”
“That’s when I lost contact with them,” said Crozier, a pitcher on YSU’s softball team. “Phones, everything. I could only write letters.
“The first three months of college without my mom were pretty rough.”
The episodes from that three month stretch are still airing, although Crozier can’t reveal the outcome. (Marci was eliminated on Tuesday night’s Week 11 episode, while Courtney is still competing. The show runs for 21 weeks.)
After weighing more than 400 pounds at age 23, Courtney actually lost 112 pounds on her own before joining the show and lost another 82 through the first 10 weeks. Marci, meanwhile, lost 76 pounds through the show’s first 10 weeks.
“When they got home, we went to the gym to work out and everyone knew who they were,” Crozier said, chuckling. “It was fun seeing people’s faces because they were just in awe.”
Crozier isn’t a celebrity but she’s making a name for herself in her first few months at YSU. She was named the Horizon League pitcher of the week on Feb. 28 — the first Penguin to earn that honor in four years — after picking up her first two victories, her first save and her first shutout.
It was a terrific start for Crozier, who tore her left ACL during a basketball game in November of 2009 and had a setback in her recovery three months later during rehab. Although she didn’t have to repeat the surgery, her ligament is stretched and could tear again.
“It’s not what it’s supposed to be, but it’s manageable,” she said. “Honestly, I didn’t feel comfortable until probably the fall season. You lose your instinct, you know?
“I was really hesitant to take ground balls again but once I started to trust the knee, I was like, ‘I can do this.’ It’s mind over matter.”
Crozier is 7-3 with a 2.39 ERA in 12 games this season — all team bests — for the Penguins (11-5).
When asked if she was surprised to be so successful so soon, she said, “Yeah, it did surprise me a little bit. A lot of it came from being confident. I knew I had a good defense behind me, so I knew if my curveball didn’t break or something, the defense could help me out.”
Crozier was a three-year letterwinner at Valparaiso High School and earned all-state honors as a junior. Although she was recruited by her hometown school, as well as schools like Indiana University and Northern Iowa, she “needed to spread my wings a little bit.”
“I wanted to go far away, but close enough where I could get home if there were an emergency,” said Crozier, whose grandfather, Ralph Iatarola, was born in Youngstown. “I said six hours was my limit and this is about six.”
Crozier also liked Penguin coaches Brian Campbell and Tiffany Patteson and was impressed by YSU’s education program. She plans to major in special education and hopes to eventually coach. Her high school coach, Kathy Levandoski, also taught special education.
“She was kind of like my mentor,” Crozier said. “I was a student aide for her class and I really liked getting to know the kids.
“It’s something I really enjoyed.”