Story by Thomas Corhern
Cookeville Herald-Citizen
COOKEVILLE — The stat line tells the whole story.
A 2.30 earned run average in 225 2/3 innings pitched. 20 wins. 27 complete games. 283 strikeouts.
In a word? Dominant.
Danielle Liberatore, the sophomore ace for the Tennessee Tech softball team, was certainly that and more.
In the 2015 campaign, she was a leader, a workhorse, a team player, and, by the end of the year, a champion.
With an amazing season leading the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Division I softball regionals, Liberatore proved herself time and time again as a suitable selection for Tennessee Tech’s Female Athlete of the Year award.
“Honestly, I’m really surprised,” Liberatore said. “We had a very good year as a team and I’m very pleased with my personal stats. I never really looked at those until the end of the year and I honestly didn’t know my stats until I read the write-up about me in the list of finalists.
“I thought, ‘OK, that’s cool.’”
Liberatore continued, “But my parents, my family, they try to keep me humble about it and that’s why I try not to look at the numbers. I’m very pleased, surprised and excited that I got it. I’m really thankful and grateful.”
And what a list of nominees beside her — Cookeville’s own Cody Dodd from the volleyball program, who is on her way to New Orleans for the U.S. Collegiate National Team junior championships; Maddie Everts and Whitney Robertson from women’s golf who finished second in the conference; Samaria Howard from women’s basketball who had an outstanding season on the court; Atlanta Westbrook from track and field set several school records; Courtney Smith from volleyball finishing her Tech career as one of the top defensive players in Golden Eagle history.
Then, including Liberatore, there were four finalists from the Tech softball team — junior Olivia Bennett, senior Hannah Eldridge and sophomore Alyssa Richards.
“That was awesome,” Liberatore said. ‘I was on Facebook and someone said, ‘Wow, softball got four nominees.’ I thought that was amazing, especially compared to the previous years. To have that many people from our team on the finalists was awesome. Alyssa was pretty much injured the whole last half of the season and she was still hitting. That’s the mentality this team has. That’s what led our team to have so many finalists, because it was a whole team effort that led to this fantastic year.”
Liberatore is the eighth Tech softball player to win the award since its inception in 1994, joining Beth Keylon (1994), Stacy Hughes (1996), Stephanie Dallmann (2003), Lori Bayless (2004), Bonnie Bynum (2006 and 2007), Beth Boden (2007) and Stephanie Fischer (2008).
Bynum, now the head coach for the Golden Eagle softball program, wasn’t surprised.
“Danielle did everything we asked her to do........
