If you're named the national softball player of the year as a junior, what's left to achieve as a senior? For shortstop Ashley Hansen, that question is like a grooved pitch she can smack over the fence: "We go to the World Series as a team."
That may sound a shade pat, but it's deeply felt. Three seasons of standout individual play by Hansen helped Stanford rack up 127 wins against 47 losses and extend its run of NCAA tournament appearances to 14 straight years. What lingers is Hansen's frustration at having yet to play in the Women's College World Series; last year's squad would have made it with just one more victory.
At press time the Cardinal record was 27-8 with Hansen hitting .360 and enhancing her place in Stanford history by taking over the top spot for career doubles. Unlike many players who worry about the limited post-college opportunities in softball, Hansen is prepared to move on. "I'll never walk away from the game completely," she notes, anticipating her participation in camps and clinics. But her focus will shift to a job at a Bay Area technology start-up that begins in August. From that point on, she says, her ambitions will revolve around becoming "a rock-star businesswoman."
Until then, there's still business, of a sort, at Stanford: the unfinished kind. The bottom line depends on where she and her teammates are on May 31, when the World Series opens in Oklahoma City.
