Cajun pitcher Brooke Mitchell looking to one more record year.

LOUISIANA La. - Brooke Mitchell has a head for numbers, as you'd expect from a business finance major.

By the time she finishes her softball career for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns, though, even Mitchell will need extra help adding up all her records and numbers.

The Pasadena, Texas, product enters today's start of the 2005 season with a 91-20 career won-loss record and a staggering 967 strikeouts - 45 of those wins and 524 of those strikeouts coming last year when she led the Cajuns to a 60-8 finish.

But she's much more than the sum total of her accomplishments, impressive though they are.

She's on schedule to graduate on time this May.

She's engaged to marry college sweetheart Tim Garrity as soon as they can find jobs.

And in many ways she's still the quiet, deeply religious young woman who arrived at UL in 2002, the only daughter of Dennis and Cherry Mitchell.

To Cajun fans, she remains the key to reaching the Women's College World Series, the player in the spotlight.

"It's definitely weird to have the spotlight on you like that," Mitchell said. "I try to surround myself with people who will make me humble.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com