To call LSU freshman pitcher Rachele Fico dominant is an understatement — she’s close to perfect.The Connecticut native set the national high school record for perfect games with 26 at Masuk High School in Monroe, Conn., leading the Panthers to Class LL state championships in 2007 and 2008.Fico amassed numerous other accolades. She was the 2008 and 2009 Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year, and she was recently named the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance Female Athlete of the Year.Fico finished high school with a 105-3 record, compiling a meager 0.07 ERA.Her transition from high school to college hasn’t been the treacherous switch many freshmen experience.Fico was thrown right into action, posting the lowest ERA (1.09) on the LSU pitching staff while tossing a team-leading 128.2 innings. She also has the most wins (17) and all five of the Tigers’ saves this season.Her focus on softball began at an early age. Fico’s father, Ralph Fico, said it took convincing for her to play tee-ball when she was 5 or 6.”When we first signed her up for tee-ball, she didn’t want to do it,” her father said. “When she got there, she realized she was good at it. When you’re good at something, you start to like it.”Rachele Fico’s brother, Nick Fico, played baseball throughout high school. He said he and his sister used to practice at the cages with their father for hours growing up. “When we were little, my dad used to have a ball, and we used to throw it back and forth until we didn’t miss it for a hundred times,” he said.Rachele Fico’s father said she found her niche as a pitcher after taking lessons when she was 9. She and her father would throw about 100 pitches six or seven days a week, he said.”We knew that there was something there,” her father said. “We just wanted to give her the avenue to make any decision she wanted to make.”Fico made a verbal commitment to LSU when she was a junior in high school. Ralph Fico said his daughter wanted to find a top softball program offering an education major.”She excels in heat and hot weather, and she didn’t want to play on the west coast,” he said. “She had letters from UCLA and Washington.”LSU coach Yvette Girouard said she invited Fico to the Tigers’ clinic after seeing her pitch in person.”She came to our clinic in January, and the team did an unbelievable job at the time of really selling LSU,” Girouard said.The decision became a two-headed race between Alabama and LSU after Fico narrowed her choices to the Southeastern Conference.”When we went to Alabama on an unofficial visit, they did a great job of recruiting her,” Fico’s father said. “She was 90 percent chosen on that school until she made a visit to LSU. It kind of had a home feeling. It looked like Connecticut without the hills.”Girouard said Fico has a bright future in Baton Rouge.”I knew she was going to be very good because of her work ethic, her maturity within the circle,” Girouard said. “She doesn’t get frazzled. She knows the game.”Sophomore catcher Morgan Russell said Fico’s talent is unquestionable, and she’s beginning to understand the speed of the college game.”When she’s out there, I’ve never seen someone so focused before,” Russell said. “She’s looking at that batter, telling her, ‘You’re going down. You’re not going to hit this ball.'”Fico played alongside LSU junior third baseman Jessica Mouse for the Stratford Brakettes, an Amateur Softball Association team that has had 11 Olympians and 19 Hall of Famers. Fico also played for the Gold Coast Hurricanes, her traveling summer club team.”For the past two years I played with [Mouse] a little bit over the summer when I was home,” Fico said. “But I spent the majority of my past two summers traveling with the Gold Coast Hurricanes.”Fico said she will play with the Brakettes full-time this summer.–Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]