By Scott Mammoser

We hear so many times about a perfect ending, but what about a perfect beginning?

Aimee Fisher, a freshman pitcher from Hamburg’s Frontier High School, threw what is believed to be the first perfect game in Buffalo State College softball history.

Not only that, it happened to be Fisher’s first game for the Bengals.

Fisher struck out 10 of the 18 batters she faced in six innings, as BSC defeated St.Lawrence, 8-0, March 18 at Cape Coral Complex in Fort Myers, Fla.

The mercy rule, which ends a game when one team is dominating, was used, and the seventh inning was not played.

“I thought it was a good way to start off the season, but now I have to keep that up,” Fisher said. “There are expectations in a way that I’m setting myself these goals now to keep those expectations high.”

BSC Coach Sandra Hollander, who recently won her 400th game in 18 seasons, believes it is the first perfect game in the program’s 28-year history.

“It’s certainly exciting, particularly for Aimee,” Hollander said. “All of the people we’ve had before her, we’ve had All-Americans and All-Conference and All-ECAC (East Coast Athletic Conference) players before her who had never thrown a perfect game. I think that’s the only perfect game we’ve had, and we’ve had great pitchers, which just shows you they come few and far between. It has to be totally the right situation for somebody to have that happen.”

The beginnings

Fisher, from the Woodlawn area of Hamburg, first played softball when she was 9, in a Lake View in-house league. When she was 12 and 13, she participated in a summer travel league and then played for Frontier High. She said she was voted an ECIC

(Erie County Interscholastic Conference) First-Team selection as a senior, after being named to the Second Team as a sophomore and junior. She also played volleyball and softball at Frontier as a freshman and sophomore, more to keep in shape for softball than for the love of the games, she said.

“I was a very intense player,” Fisher said about her high school softball career.

“Once the game started and once I stepped on the field, I was just all about the game. I wasn’t there for fun, I wasn’t there to joke around, I was there for the achievement.”

            Debby Schruefer, the softball coach at Frontier, said Fisher is highly self-motivated and coachable.

            “She was the type of pitcher who knew how to keep the hitters off-balanced,” Schruefer said. “She was very cool up on the mound, and nothing really rattled her. She’s the epitome of what a female softball pitcher is supposed to be. We miss Aimee.”

Winding up at BSC

Fisher, who wants to become a forensic chemist, had Edinboro University in Pennsylvania on her radar until one summer day.

“I met Coach Hollander at a summer softball tournament, and one of the girls (Jessica Mooney) on the team now introduced me and persuaded me to be here,” Fisher said. “After a while, it was closer, cheaper, it was just easier.”

Hollander said Edinboro wasn’t paying as much attention to Fisher as BSC was.

“During the summer we kind of stayed on it, talked to her mom one day at a summer tournament,” Hollander said. “We always try to leave the door open for our kids.

She changed her mind that night.”

Both sides of the mound

Fisher is also one of the Bengals’ top hitters in the early stages of the season.

Through the team’s first 14 games, Fisher is tied for the team lead with 12 RBI.

“If I’m upset it (hitting) helps me get my anger out,” Fisher said. “Really nothing gets me upset, I just try to get mad during the games because it helps me do better. It helps me perform better. If there’s a bad call or something that I didn’t like, I would get upset.”

Don’t look for Fisher to be a regular position player though.

“Right now what we’ve done, when she’s not pitching, she’s hitting as the designated player, and when Nicky Sabuda’s not pitching, she’s the designated player in the other spot,” Hollander said. “Because they’re both pretty consistent with what they’re doing, they’re going to stay in the hitting lineup.  I don’t know this year if you’ll see either one of them in the defense. Mostly because we can’t afford to have them get hurt.”

Despite her offensive talents, Fisher’s first love remains defense.

“I enjoy pitching more,” Fisher said. “It’s more of just you out there and all the pressure’s on you, and I enjoy having all the pressure on me. I do better when I’m under

pressure. It helps me because I don’t want to let the team down. I want to be able to push forward and do well.”

Contact Scott Mammoser: mailto:Scotty8882@cs.com.