Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Denny Tincher, father of Virginia Tech star softball pitcher Angela Tincher, stands by the pitching rubber at the practice area he built next to a barn at their rural Botetourt County home.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

In Angela Tincher's bedroom at her parents' home in rural Botetourt County, the softballs used in memorable games she pitched during her years at James River High School. The Knights won two state championships with Tincher in the pitcher's circle.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

In Angela Tincher's bedroom at her parents' home in rural Botetourt County, the softballs used in memorable games she pitched during her years at James River High School. The Knights won two state championships with Tincher in the pitcher's circle.

Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Susan and Denny Tincher visit with daughter Angela after last week's game, where she registered her 2,000th career strikeout for Virginia Tech. Angela also no-hit East Carolina in that game, which the Hokies won 11-0.

Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Angela Tincher accepted a half scholarship from Virginia Tech when she came out of James River High School. Since coming to Blacksburg, she has won an ACC-record 115 games.

BLACKSBURG -- As a child in Alleghany County, Angela Tincher liked to go fishing and camping with her parents. She even went hunting occasionally with her father.

But what else was there to do?

She tried dancing, gymnastics, basketball, the guitar.

Boring.

When a friend decided to go out for Little League softball, a 9-year-old Tincher asked her parents if she could give it a try.

Tincher had plenty to learn. She got into an argument with her father about which hand to put her glove on. She was right-handed, so she assumed the glove should go on that hand.

She wasn't very good initially, so she became a fixture in right field.

Tincher wanted action.

She tried catcher, but a girl twice her size knocked her over at home plate.

What about pitching? That didn't seem boring.

Denny Tincher didn't know anyone who could teach his 10-year-old daughter to pitch, so he figured he would. He put up a pink, cotton blanket in their basement, and she would throw into the target while he studied her mechanics.

"He didn't know anything about it either," she said. "He had to learn to teach me."

It was 1996, and the U.S. softball team was making a splash at the Summer Olympics.

That summer, Tincher wrote her goals on that blanket. She wanted to pitch for her team, the Alley Cats, and for the Little League all-star team.

Her third goal? She drew the Olympic rings.

Twelve years later, that girl would throw a no-hitter to beat the U.S. Olympic team.

Learning together

Tincher threw one inning for her team at the end of the 1996 season. She was hooked.

She was determined to be a good pitcher by the following season. Father and daughter spent months working together in pursuit of that goal.

"I was pretty obsessed with it," she said.

"I would threaten them every once in a while that we were going to get rid of softball," said Tincher's mother, Susan Tincher. "I'd get tired of hearing them talk about softball. They'd break down every pitch, every hand movement, arm movement, leg movement."

Denny Tincher, then the owner of two Covington radio stations, knew nothing about softball pitching technique. He bought instructional tapes and a video camera and went to clinics.

"A lot of stuff we figured out on our own that I think a lot of other people in bigger cities with better resources [already] knew," the pitcher said. "We just kind of stumbled across a lot of it on our own."

Her father would catch her in the back yard. If she copped an attitude, he would go back in the house. She would apologize and drag him back outside.

"We went through that for a couple years there," she said. "Mom wanted to kill both of us because we were just, like, at each other.

"If he would've made me do it, ... it wouldn't have been fun and I don't think I would've stuck with it. Every year, we talked about what my goals were and then he knew how hard to push me."

When she was 11, Tincher accomplished the first two goals on that blanket by becoming a starting pitcher for the Alley Cats and making the all-star team.

The piece of the blanket on which she wrote her goals is now part of a quilt Susan Tincher made that also includes T-shirts from her various teams and tournaments.

Tincher never became complacent. There was always another team, another tournament, another goal.

If you ever want to play softball just for fun, her father would say, just tell me.

Just for fun? Never.

"It was just always really important to me," she said. "I wanted to be better. I wasn't just happy with wherever I was."

They would shovel snow so she could pitch. She even wanted to pitch on Christmas, beginning what has become an annual ritual for her and her dad.

When she was 12, Tincher pitched for her all-star team in the Commonwealth Games. She was outshined by future Radford University standout Ashley Taylor.

"Angela could not stand that somebody was faster than her," said Denny Tincher, now a real estate agent. "That's all she asked me for two years: 'Am I as fast as Ashley Taylor yet?'

"I said, 'No, and that is not the goal. First we're going to learn to put the ball where we want it, learn to bend it, learn to change the speeds.' "

Making an impact

When she was 14, Tincher achieved another goal when she made Roanoke's ASA team, the Scrappers. That was also the year she learned the riseball -- which has become her signature pitch.

Tincher's family -- which by then included Tincher's sister Abby -- moved to a larger home, an old farmhouse in Botetourt County, during her sophomore year of high school. She transferred from Alleghany High School to James River High School.

Denny Tincher set up a pitching rubber and net next to their barn so they could continue their sessions at their new home.

He also served as James River's pitching coach during Tincher's three stellar seasons there.

Tincher led the Knights to the Group A semifinals as a sophomore and to state titles the following two years. In her final two seasons combined, she struck out 590 batters and pitched 17 no-hitters.

"She was just awesome," James River coach John Shotwell said. "It was just hard for people to get the bat on the ball. It got to the point where most people were just trying to bunt, even on a third strike."

Overlooked

In the fall of her senior year, Tincher left the Scrappers to gain more exposure playing for the Shamrocks, an ASA squad in Northern Virginia that traveled around the country.

She caught the attention of Georgia Tech and a few others, but Tincher only had a few tournaments to make an impression before NCAA signing day that fall.

Her only scholarship offer was from Virginia Tech coach Scot Thomas, who had been watching her pitch for James River and the Roanoke Scrappers. Since he didn't have any competition for her services, he only offered her a half-scholarship.

"We thought she was going to be a good, solid Division I pitcher," Thomas said. "Did we think she was going to be what she is [now]? I can't tell you that.

"We got a lot more than what we bargained for."

Tincher loved Tech and didn't want to wait and see if other offers would come her way. She wasn't offended by having only one suitor.

"I was in a small school, small area. I didn't really play on a national-type [travel-ball] circuit until my senior year, so I didn't really feel like I really showed anyone anything that they should've been jumping all over me," she said.

It wasn't until the summer after her senior year of high school that she really made her mark with the Shamrocks. It was then, said Thomas, that other college coaches realized they had made a recruiting mistake -- and he realized he had a steal.

Hokies star

Tincher was greeted with skepticism by her college teammates. They knew she was the girl who had been in Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" for her prep exploits, but they also wondered if she was merely a local recruit who wouldn't live up to the hype.

Even Tincher wondered.

"I wasn't really sure if I was going to cut it," she said.

Tincher knew that in college she would need more than the riseball she had relied upon at James River. She developed a great dropball, as well as a change-up and curve.

"I like being out there every day and working at it," she said.

As a freshman, she led Tech to its first NCAA tournament berth. Her reward was a full scholarship.

Last year, she was not only a first-team All-American but also a first-team Academic All-American. The finance major will attend graduate school at Tech in the fall to pursue an MBA.

"She gets so mad when she gets anything below a 90 on a test," said her boyfriend, Tech baseball player Sean O'Brien. "She's just as competitive [that way]."

Going national

Tincher had a chance to achieve her childhood Olympic dream last fall when she competed in the U.S. Olympic Selection Camp. She didn't make the team.

In March, though, she got another chance to prove herself against the nation's best when she pitched a no-hitter in the Hokies' stunning 1-0 upset of the U.S. team.

On Tuesday, the senior became the third pitcher in NCAA history to reach 2,000 career strikeouts, following 2008 Olympians Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman. The 5-foot-7 Tincher throws an average of 65 mph, but hitters aren't just stymied by her heat.

"She's not a big girl, so you don't really know what's coming, but her [riseball] just has such great movement at the end," said East Carolina's Cristen Aona, who struck out twice against Tincher on Tuesday. "It climbs up on you."

She still has goals to pursue. She wants to make the U.S. national team within the next few years, even though softball won't be in the 2012 Olympics. And she hopes to end her Tech career in the Women's College World Series.

Because Tincher still doesn't play softball just for fun.

"By looking at her in a game, I can see that she's out for the kill," Tech catcher Kelsey Hoffman said. "Her eyes are focused and dead set."

She will make her pro debut this summer for National Pro Fastpitch's Akron Racers. But when she returns to Tech in the fall, she will join the Hokies' coaching staff as a graduate assistant.

Yes, the pupil will become a teacher.

"They'll have one heck of a batting-practice pitcher," Denny Tincher said.