Abbie Squier recently went back and watched a game film from 2023 and listened to the commentators question her stance in the box. They were wondering what in the world she was doing.
Squier started on the plate and then stepped back to give herself room. The commentators didn’t know she had a secret.
She was playing with a hip injury and her stance was forever changing depending on the amount of pain she was in.
“I was feeling really good going into the season,” said Squier in a phone interview. “And then I started having some hip pain in preseason. As athletes, you have pain and just deal with it so I wasn’t really concerned about it. It progressively got worse so we got an MRI.”
The MRI revealed some impingement and labral damage in her left hip.
Squier, along with her trainers and doctors, decided to come up with a plan to manage her pain with anti-inflammatories and injections. If she could tolerate the pain, she could play.
After a 2022 season that earned her First-Team Big 10 honors, Squier emerged as a leader both on and field the field for the Huskers.
She was named a captain for the 2023 season and fully embraced the responsibility but she struggled internally. She was struggling to produce offensively early and felt like she needed to push through the pain because of the captain’s role.
“I learned last year how to separate your own ups and downs,” said Squier. “The team looks to you for consistency and you have to figure out a way to put your own problems aside and be there for your teammates.”
Squier turned a corner when conference play started. In 23 games, she batted .314 with three doubles, four triples, nine runs scored and 17 runs batted in. She was also 2-for-3 in stolen bases.
When it came to her hitting, head coach Rhonda Revelle gave all the credit to hitting coach Diane Miller and Squier.
“Her and Diane Miller, our hitting coach, had a very open line of communication,” said head coach Rhonda Revelle over the phone. “It was really an attitude of, ‘What can we do?’
“Diane is all about coaching the player and coaching them where they are, so where they are developmentally but also where their limitations of their body are. There’s a lot of trust there because she works one-on-one with each player. Abbie is a real student of the game and she understands her body. That was them, trial and error every day.”
When the Huskers season ended, Squier knew she would have plenty of time to rest. She stopped receiving her injections and cut back on the anti-inflammatories.
There was more pain but this time it was her right shoulder.
“Through the season my shoulder would be sore but I didn’t really think about it,” Squier said. “So I rehabbed both hip and shoulder through the summer and it didn’t seem to get better. It was really painful to throw.”
As she rehabbed her injuries and was on campus over the summer, Squier was still in a good amount of pain.
“I was at (Bowlin) Stadium and Coach Miller sat down and started talking to me,” Squier continued. “This was before my shoulder MRI and I told her that I had been having shoulder pain. She asked if there was something wrong and if I would think about a fifth year if my MRI revealed anything. Ultimately, they left the decision up to me.”
The seed was planted and Squier went in for an MRI. It showed similar damage to what was going on with her hip. With the support of her coaches, she decided to get surgery on both and take a medical redshirt for 2024.
She had hip surgery in August, shoulder surgery in October and is now approaching the upcoming season from a different perspective.
“She’s been a big leader on our team for the past two years and that will continue and roll right into this year,” said Revelle about Squier's role with this year’s team. “I always say the best leaders lead themselves and she’s impeccable at how she leads her life not only on the field but off the field.”
Squier is working with Miller on offensive scouting and helping the younger outfielders in the program.
“The question after practice the other day was, ‘Who has inspired you, who have you been grateful for recently?’ Revelle said. “Two of our young outfields answered with Abbie. That’s a testament to who Abbie Squier is to her core.”
With the regular season a couple of weeks away, Squier is looking forward to finding joy in her teammates’ successes and understanding the valuable lessons she’s learned over the past year.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is how to lean on my faith and not ride the ups and downs of my circumstances and how to be there for my teammates. I think when you can celebrate other people’s successes and just be doing life with the girls, it takes the focus off of yourself.”
Nebraska softball is hosting its first Fan Day on Saturday, Feb. 3 before traveling to Puerto Vallarta and opening the season against Washington on Thursday, Feb. 8.
