As UC Davis softball faced UC San Diego in a three-game series over the weekend, this marked the first time that Aggie head coach Erin Thorpe faced off against her alma mater and former collegiate coach Patti Gerckens.
The former Erin Bridges attended UCSD from 1997-2000, specializing as a shortstop during her spell for the Tritons. As an athlete for Gerckens, she was honored as a third-team All American and received four All-West region honors. She is still among the school career leaders in batting (.362), RBI (97), and triples (12).
"This was awesome for me because that is where I learned a lot about the game," said Thorpe. "It is very exciting to see my alma mater at a point where they are playing at such a high level."
Gerckens has been at the helm for UCSD since 1993, leading the Tritons to 13 NCAA postseason appearances. She is the winningest coach in program history, garnering a Division II championship in 2011 off a school record 45-win season.
Thorpe grew up around athletics as her father was a collegiate athletic director. She says that she was inspired early on to enter a career in coaching; however, Coach Gerckens played an influential role as well.
"Her competitiveness inspired me to want to shoot for a competitive coaching situation," Thorpe explained. "I saw the joy of her competing and that rubbed off on me."
Despite nearly 20 years of coaching, Thorpe and Gercken's coaching careers never converged. Thorpe began her collegiate coaching career at Whittier in 2002 where she elevated the program into one with a positive win percentage. She then went on to become the inaugural head coach at Boise State, spending six years laying the foundation for the softball program before joining UC Davis in 2014. It took UCSD reclassifying as a Division 1 program and joining the Big West conference for the two to meet.
Coach Thorpe recalls falling in love with the sport and the processes of improvement while being an athlete for Gerckens, two traits they have in common. She expressed that, "her ability to be a constant learner of the game and always trying to improve is something that I admire."
Continuing a strong relationship to this day, Thorpe expressed that it was "cool we were texting before the weekend" as she worked to prepare her team to take on the Tritons.
UC Davis had a successful weekend on the diamond as it won two out of three games, both of which came in extra innings.
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