From 1987-1990, the Bates softball team went 40-22, one of the most successful runs in program history.
Michele Feroah '90 was the winning pitcher in 34 of those games for the Bobcats. Her 34 career victories remain the most in team history, and her winning percentage of .680 is still the program standard.
Fans of Bates athletics may know Feroah more for her exploits on the volleyball court, as the 1989 team went 36-0 with Feroah as their All-New England setter. However, her achievements in the circle for the softball team still stand out today.
"She's probably the best pitcher I ever had," Bates athletics Hall of Fame coach Sherry Deschaine says. "I worked with a lot of pitchers, but she had good experience, good training, and she just had good speed and good stuff."
Feroah first stepped on campus in the fall of 1986, primarily interested in playing volleyball for Bates coach Marsha Graef. But softball was in her blood, as her mom Mari Beth pitched in a semi-pro league in Nevada when Feroah was a young kid before they moved to Massachusetts.
"I went to all her games," Feroah says. "I pitched because my mom did, and I kind of idolized her. She's a badass."
It was heady days for Bates women's sports. Feroah joined a volleyball team in the fall that went 37-3 and she recalls being impressed by the softball team when she tried out in the spring of 1987.
"The team was really good," Feroah says. "I remember Emily Gabler '87 was a pitcher, and she had some…heat, man. I wasn't even sure I was going to make the team!"
Not only did Feroah make the team, she excelled, going 6-1 with a 1.00 ERA and throwing three shutouts. She and Gabler made for a dynamic duo as the Bobcats went 10-4, sweeping rivals Bowdoin and Colby and winning the Maine Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (MAIAW) state championship. Combined, the two hurlers allowed just 13 earned runs in 84.2 innings pitched.
Four decades since her strong debut season, Feroah doesn't remember the specifics of any individual games, but she does remember her love of being on the team and her Hall of Fame coach.
"Sherry was very cool," Feroah says. "She would joke with me a lot during my time at Bates because we didn't have very many pitchers. I was the pitching machine. She would say, 'put another coin in, get the pitching machine going.'"
Indeed, Feroah pitched 91 out of a possible 103 innings for the Bobcats as a sophomore in 1988 on her way to an 11-3 record and a 1.77 ERA. As a team, Bates finished 11-4 in a campaign the Bates Student called "the best ever at Bates" for the program. At one point, the Bobcats won eight games in a row, which remained their longest winning streak until the 2012 team won nine straight.
But it wasn't just Feroah's pitching that sparked the team's success. The 1988 Bobcats ranked sixth in NCAA Division III in runs scored and were led offensively by Feroah's classmate and volleyball teammate Rachel Clayton '90, a Bates athletics Hall of Famer who hit eight of her 13 career home runs that season.
"One of my memories is us putting on our rally caps when Rachel was at the plate to see if she would hit a home run," Feroah says. "Sometimes you just knew she was going to hit one, which I had never felt about any player."
Two more winning seasons followed, with the Bobcats going 9-7 in 1989 and 10-7 in 1990. Feroah capped off her career by throwing a pair of no-hitters as a senior. In her four seasons, the Bobcats never lost to rivals Bowdoin and Colby.
But it's the off-the-field memories that stand out to Bates' winningest pitcher.
"I loved road trips, that was my favorite thing," Feroah says. "We got in those vans, and we'd have a cooler of food. My freshman year, I remember all the cool people would sit in the back and my goal was to get to the back and hang out with those people."
The road trips sometimes took Bates to bigger cities, like Hartford, Connecticut, where the Bobcats took on regional power Trinity.
"We got to stay in this big hotel and I remember Rachel and I wandering around downtown, causing all sorts of havoc," Feroah says. "We might have gotten some beer. Don't tell coach!"
Feroah majored in biology at Bates and upon graduation landed a job in Portland working in a lab. She lived in Lewiston for a little over a decade after graduation, playing club volleyball and occasionally coming back to Bates to pitch to the Bobcat softball players. Eventually, her parents both moved to California and she followed. Feroah currently works as a day trader and lives with her husband in Battle Ground, Washington.
"I haven't been back to Bates since I returned to the west coast, but I had a great experience there," Feroah says. "I do wish I had taken more advantage of all the opportunities the college offers, as I was a little too focused on partying and my new-found freedom."
Nevertheless, she credits Bates with helping her land her first two jobs and teaching her to think critically. Competing for the volleyball and softball teams proved to be invaluable.
"I think my experience would have been a lot different if I hadn't played sports at Bates," Feroah says. "I'm kind of shy and reserved. I don't really make friends easily. So having sports there to give you this group of people who have something in common, that made my experience a whole lot better."
