It's been almost a decade since the Slippery Rock High softball team has made the playoffs, but senior pitcher Morgan Robinson is looking to lead the Rockets to the promised land this season.

SLIPPERY ROCK — It's been nearly a decade since the Slippery Rock High softball team has experienced the postseason.

Senior pitcher Morgan Robinson is desperate to end that dubious streak.

"This season, for me, is so important," Robinson said. "As I've come up through the high school, we're been around .500, but we haven't been able to break through. I want to leave high school with an up note."

The Rockets have been on the cusp for the past two seasons. Last year was the first winning season for the program since the turn of the millennium.

If Slippery Rock is to crash the District 10 playoff party, it will do so largely on the right arm of Robinson, who has been brilliant for most of the season.

After an 0-2 start, Slippery Rock has won five of six, including four in a row.

Robinson has struck out 81 batters in 50 innings, but her success is by no means by accident.

Robinson has been a starter since her freshman year, has worked diligently in the offseason and has a competitive streak second to none.

"It's her work ethic," said Slippery Rock coach Zoe McDowell while trying to explain what makes Robinson so good. "I think she practices so much and has so much dedication to her craft that it has allowed her to excel. She seeks out good instructors and works constantly."

Robinson began pitching when she was 10, but had a bumpy ride for two years until pitching coach Jim Moats got a hold of her.

Moats, who is the longtime coach at Mercyhurst Prep in Erie, reworked her mechanics and lit a fire under Robinson that still burns today.

"He always pushed me," Robinson said. "It took me a while to be a self-pusher."

Robinson throws a dizzying array of pitches, including a fastball, curveball, changeup, drop ball, rise ball and screwball. But she gets by predominantly with a fastball-changeup combination that baffles hitters.

She also has good command, walking only 16 batters this season.

As good as she has been physically, it's been her mental maturity that has put her over the top.

The three-hour practices on her mechanics not only strengthened her deliver, but also her resolve.

"I got mentally tough," Robinson said. "Pitching is 90 percent mental."

Slippery Rock faces a key stretch in its schedule with home games against Hickory, Jamestown, Leechburg and Franklin over the next eight days.

This is a stretch than can make or break the Rockets.

Robinson said she thinks it can make them.

"I really think this is the year that we can really make things different and leave behind a team that can be a dynasty," Robinson said.