With ‘blue-collar team’ and special blue shirt, Boise State softball soars into Top 25
A typical Division I athletic program receives a lot of free gear these days — from practice threads to shoes to game-day attire.
First-year Boise State softball coach Justin Shults wanted his team to remember its roots, though, so all of the apparel the Broncos have this season was earned.
It started in the fall as a way to motivate his players to get to know each other, and it has turned into a galvanizing force that spurred the best start in program history and now a Top 25 ranking going into a key weekend series with Mountain West preseason co-favorite UNLV. The three-game series begins at 4 p.m. Friday at Dona Larsen Park.
“A big thing that we do here is that we emphasize earning things,” Boise State outfielder Kelsey Hall said. “Just because you’re at a D1 university, you don’t deserve endless amounts of gear.
“We want to appreciate every little thing we do, which translates to appreciating the little things on the field, like the chopper that scores a girl home. It’s not the prettiest thing, but you come in here going nuts because it’s the little things. We earned that run.”
‘Remember their roots’
Beginning in the fall, Shults and his staff put together a plan to help players earn the gear they would use throughout the season.
Players could earn a T-shirt for things like going to coffee with a teammate to get to know them better, or for impeccable weight room execution. Academics, upholding team standards and community service also warranted rewards.
“I grew up in a blue-collar family, so when I came here, I knew that the previous coaches did not have nearly as much gear as we get,” Shults said. “I wanted (the team) to remember their roots. Why was Boise State so good in the past? It was because they were that blue-collar team.”
One particular blue shirt printed with the words “blue collar” became a coveted item among the Broncos. Players were nominated each week by coaches and teammates for going above and beyond the blue-collar standard. The team would then vote anonymously for the person who should receive the shirt for that week.
“At one point, we missed a week ... from that day on, they were so adamant about looking for each other and finding that success,” Shults said.
Historic start
The offseason bonding helped Shults’ first-year staff hit the ground running.
The Broncos won their first five games of the season — a program record — after going 20-25 the year before.
“I’ve been a part of a couple first-year staffs, and this has been the smoothest transition,” Shults said. “They’ve wanted to make some adjustments, they’ve bought into our staff, and then I think that 5-0 start solidified, ‘OK, we do have something special here.’ The confidence that I’ve seen from the girls has really grown from week to week.”
Boise State is 27-5 overall and riding a 10-game winning streak going into its series with UNLV. The Broncos sit in a tie atop the Mountain West standings with San Diego State at 6-0.
Fifth-year senior Hannah Bailey helped spearhead the Broncos’ hot start. During their season-opening run, the right-handed pitcher threw two complete games and posted an ERA of 1.31 while allowing just nine hits. Last season, she won a team-best nine games and led the Broncos with a 2.27 ERA, which ranks No. 2 all-time on Boise State’s single-season list.
At 9-1, Bailey has already matched her win total from last season, and she boasts a team-leading 1.74 ERA, including seven complete-game wins.
“Our pitching has done a really, really good job,” Boise State center fielder Kelsey Lalor said. “They’ve kept us in a lot of games, especially when we don’t get off to a really good start.”
Transfer power
If pitching keyed the strong start, offensive firepower has helped sustain the Broncos’ success.
Boise State leads the Mountain West in runs scored (231), hits (282), doubles (59), home runs (47) and RBIs (211), and the Broncos’ .318 batting average is second-best in the league.
And they aren’t just competitive on the conference level. Through Tuesday, the Broncos rank eighth in all of Division I in runs per game (7.22), eighth in doubles per game (1.84), 15th for on-base percentage (.409) and 17th in home runs per game (1.47).
“We have a really talented group of hitters. I mean, one through nine, we’re really strong in the lineup, and even after that we’re really deep,” Lalor said. “So that’s just a testament to the work that we’ve put in.
“We have a lot of people that will come up before practice and get in extra swings. And then also the work that we do in practice is really focused. We’ll prepare specifically for the pitchers that we’re going to face, and you can really tell that it translates into the game when we’re challenged in batting practice.”
Transfers have been the difference at the plate, with the Broncos’ top three hitters arriving at Boise State from different programs.
Hall, a transfer from Fresno State who hits in the leadoff spot, leads the Broncos and ranks second in the Mountain West with a batting average of .438, including eight home runs and 18 RBIs. She played in 24 games for Fresno State as a freshman in 2020 but tore the ACL in her left knee three games into the 2021 season.
Although she is a junior academically after transferring, because of the COVID year and her injury, Hall is still a freshman athletically.
“Last year I started off really well. I was really excited,” Hall said. “Then one mishap and things just completely turned upside down for me at that point. I just have really been able to appreciate just being here.”
Among the other transfers getting it done at the plate are Alycia Flores, who came from Oklahoma and is batting .382, with a team-high 39 hits; and Lalor, who began her collegiate career as a women’s basketball player at the University of Saskatchewan and also played for the Canadian National women’s baseball team. She is batting .363 with a team-leading 10 doubles, and also has six home runs and 26 RBIs.
“Almost everyone on this team has gone through the COVID year. They’ve gone through coaching changes. They’ve gone through a lot of just trial and error in their college experience,” Shults said. “So I’d say the resiliency of the team has really been the reason why we’ve had such a good start. They’ve never backed down from a challenge, and it doesn’t matter if we’re up early or down early. They always believe that they have a chance to win.”
National respect
For only the second time in program history, the Broncos find themselves ranked in both the Extra Inning Softball (No. 23) and D1Softball (No. 25) Top 25 polls.
Although the belief was strong inside the dugout, the outside recognition is reminiscent of past Boise State teams that made noise on a national level.
The 2018 squad won the program’s first Mountain West regular-season championship and advanced to the regional round of the NCAA Division I Softball Championship, and the Broncos followed that up with another nationals appearance in 2019, including the school’s first tourney victory.
This year’s team hopes hearkening back to their blue-collar roots could lead to similar success.
“It’s nice that people across the country are taking notice and they’re kind of paying attention to us now,” Lalor said. “Everybody’s kind of finding out what we’ve already known. We knew that if we put everything together, we were going to be really talented, and that if we showed up to play every day, we were gonna put up good numbers.
“So it’s really nice, I guess, that that’s actually happening and people are finally seeing it.”
UNLV AT BOISE STATE
When: 4 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday, noon Sunday
Where: Dona Larsen Park, Boise
Live stream: broncosports.com/mwn
Records: Boise State 27-5, 6-0 MW; UNLV 24-6, 2-1 MW
Last meeting: UNLV swept last year’s series in Las Vegas by scores of 2-1, 6-5 and 4-0.
