Melissa Rice punched the air and swung her legs in a mock demonstration of her new kickboxing skills.
Smiling at the same time, the intimidating pitcher revealed a calmer, easy-going demeanor away from the mound. The start of spring term brought with it a kickboxing class and the relaxed Rice had just started learning moves with her classmates.
It’s a side of her personality she hides when she is pitching and facing the elite hitters found within the Pacific-10 Conference.
“I don’t want my opponent to notice that I’m nervous or anything so I just take deep breaths and play with the dirt, which is my way of staying calm,” Rice said.
She smoothly started Oregon’s opener in Pac-10 play with a two-hitter against No. 1 UCLA in Los Angeles. Rice retired 14 straight batters on ground balls in one stretch.
Any excitement she felt was tempered, she says, by the 2-0 loss.
“I just felt really comfortable,” Rice said. “I wasn’t as nervous as I usually was which I think has come with my maturity.”
Following another loss to UCLA, a 12-0 shutout, Oregon returned to Howe Field for its first rivalry game with Oregon State last Wednesday and Rice earned the start.
It ended shorter than she may have hoped with Arendsen bringing in Cook in the third inning after allowing four runs. But it was a rare occurrence in what has been a string of consistent pitching this season.
The workhorse of the past two seasons, Rice has been joined by Alicia Cook and Brittany Rumfelt in providing the Oregon pitching staff with more depth.

Rice, who played for Colville High School in Colbert, Wash., was expected to be the third or fourth pitcher in Oregon’s rotation as a freshman and the second pitcher as a sophomore, but with Cook missing time due either to academics or injuries, she’s had to shoulder a larger load.
It was fine with Rice.
She pitched 113 innings in going 8-5 with a 2.60 ERA as a freshman and went 21-14 last season in 202.2 innings with a 2.87 ERA.
“I just took it in stride,” she said.
This season her innings have dropped, partly with the senior Cook healthy, and the freshman Rumfelt’s addition to the roster. So far, Rice is 11-8 with a 2.63 ERA in 106 innings, while Cook carries an 11-8 record and 2.98 ERA in 129.2 innings. Rumfelt, who missed time with a fractured index finger on her pitching hand, has since returned.
“She’s confident,” coach Kathy Arendsen says of Rice. “She’s incredibly competitive. She’s very fit and strong and prepared.”
With experience, Rice has been able to guide others through the transition to college softball, including freshman catcher Ashley Kivett.
“She is a really, really, really positive person and she definitely helped me a lot ’cause I was kind of nervous catching college pitchers for the first time, but she helped me adjust really fast,” Kivett said.
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