Every so often, when the weight of schoolwork and social priorities and opposing batters with sweet swings brings them down, the Netz siblings — Dawson and Devyn — will hop into a car together and head up to Oro Valley for a family meal with parents Dan and Lisa, forgetting their troubles for a night.
Maybe it’s the home cooking or maybe it’s the chance, as Devyn says, “to just be ourselves again.” Either way, it is a much-needed reprieve for the two Wildcat pitchers.
“You can see it centers them,” Lisa Netz said. “They come home and it’s calming for them.”
Dawson, 22, stars for the Arizona baseball team, returning for his junior year after he went 2-1 with a 4.26 ERA in 38.0 innings in a sophomore campaign limited by injury.
Devyn, 21, heads into her junior season coming off a team-leading 15 wins in 25 starts for the Wildcats, ranking eighth in the Pac-12.
They both grew up excelling at their sports, learning the perseverance that comes naturally to both baseball and softball.
The thought of attending college, together no less, in Tucson seemed far-fetched as can be for siblings Dawson, left, and Devyn Netz, when growing up outside Los Angeles and starring for Maranatha High School in Pasadena, Calif. But they both made it to Southern Arizona after all, and each is key in his or her own right to the success the Arizona baseball and softball pitching staffs will likely have during their respective 2023 seasons.
“My husband and I agree that these sports did our parenting for us,” Lisa said. “It taught them the beauty of discipline. It formed a natural longing to be better. In every area of their life, they began competing. It was important to me that they didn’t have a fear of failure, a fear of authority.”
Now both are expected to play pivotal roles for the Wildcats in 2023.
Especially if they’re able to rely on each other for support, which they have already during their Tucson tenures. Sometimes it’s on those visits home. Sometimes it’s a quick catch-up in either of their respective apartments, which just so happen to be in the same complex.
“The best part with the tough season we had was that my brother was there for a lot of it, helping me through it,” Devyn said. “Physically, we may both have it, but mentally sometimes it’s tough; college athletics is really hard, more mentally than physically, and he’s helped me through a lot of it.
“Sometimes you don’t want to talk about your sport; you want to be anything but (being) an athlete. Sometimes it’s nice being an ordinary sibling.”
Arizona pitcher Devyn Netz backhands a throw to first to get an out in the sixth inning of an April 2022 UA home game against Oregon at Hillenbrand Stadium. Netz said she visited Tucson on a recruiting trip the same week Hillenbrand re-opened after renovations, ‘and I committed that weekend.”
A fuzzy first impression — twice
The idea that they would someday end up playing for the same university, much less in Tucson, was almost laughable to both of them in a recent Zoom conversation.
They grew up in the shadow of UCLA in Pasadena — “five minutes from the Rose Bowl,” Dawson said — starring for Maranatha High School.
But the Netz family had been visiting relatives and friends around here for years, at least once a year, every year. Dawson and Devyn’s father, Dan, went to Catalina Foothills High and played football at Northern Arizona for a year.
The familiarity with the city did little to pique Dawson’s interest during the recruiting process. But Tucson grew on him.
“Funny story — when I first came out here on a visit, I thought, ‘This is the worst place on the planet. Why would anyone want to go to school here? This place sucks,’” he said. “I came out for another visit, and I actually liked the place. The third time, I fell in love with it. I honestly love it out here. (I) love the desert. I never thought I’d fall in love with it the way I did.”
If Dawson’s first impression was fuzzy, Devyn’s was even more underwhelming.
“I definitely didn’t see this coming,” she said. “It’s something I didn’t really put into perspective that it even could be a possibility. When he committed, I was like, ‘Who wants to go to Tucson? This kid is crazy. It’s in the middle of nowhere, who wants to be stuck in Tucson? Good for him.’
“About a year later (I) was watching YouTube videos of (coach) Lowe and Coach Candrea and Coach T,” she added of UA softball head coach Caitlin Lowe, longtime former coach Mike Candrea and assistant coach Taryne Mowatt-McKinney, a legend in the circle herself not terribly long ago. “And I was like, ‘Wow, I really like this staff, the way they teach the game, this is the exact way my travel ball coaches taught. This was the standard of expectations.’
“I ended up reaching out during the whole recruiting process, but I didn’t think it was a possibility until I came to camp here.”
In 2019, as a junior at Maranatha, she went 19-4 with a 0.75 ERA and 253 strikeouts with only 16 walks, according to 210PrepSports.com. She also hit .494 with 38 hits, 28 RBIs, 18 runs, nine doubles, four triples and five home runs.
She’d become one of the most coveted college prospects in the country.
It was then that she caught the eye of the Arizona coaching staff .
“Obviously the coaches knew my brother was committed there, and the moment I met them for the first time, it was like they’d known me my entire life,” she said. “At the end of the day, softball is just a game and school is school, but when you have people in your corner like that, who want to know you and help you grow, who are your No. 1 supporters, that’s what really stuck with me.
“I remember after camp, I said, ‘I want to be a Wildcat, I want to win a national championship with you.’ The next day, (former director of operations Stacy) Iveson said we want you to come on a trip, and I think it was when Rita Hillenbrand Stadium just opened, and I committed that weekend.”
Realizing that they’d be spending half their year cheering on their children in Tucson anyway, the family decided to relocate the following summer. Devyn spent her final high school season with powerhouse Ironwood Ridge in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.
For the Netz parents, having a chance to cheer on two of their three children from up close — older brother Daniel, played baseball for Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California — is something they treasure. And it’s nothing new.
“Our family was very close, and our social life was on the field,” Lisa Netz said. “That was our social circle. We were dividing and conquering, and it was nothing to be at 10 or 12 games in a weekend.”
Now, at least, they’ve only got to worry about a couple.
Arizona pitcher Dawson Netz delivers home in the third inning of the Wildcats’ eventual 8-6 win over Oregon on May 25, 2022, in Arizona’s first game of the 2022 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament at Scottsdale Stadium. Netz and his sister, UA softball pitcher Devyn Netz, both have experience pitching on their respective sport’s biggest stages. Dawson made an appearance on the mound for Arizona in the 2021 Men’s College World Series, with Devyn doing the same for the Wildcats in the circle during the 2022 Women’s College World Series.
They’re in it together
They’ve gone through a lot together in Tucson.
Coaching changes and down years. Injuries and slumps.
It’s been made easier with a built-in support system.
“I would definitely say we’ve grown closer in our relationship since being here,” Devyn said. “Being in similar spots, needing help, bouncing thoughts off each other has been the key driver in that. It’s been super helpful because we’re both in the same position, being student-athletes, and not only student-athletes but at the same school doing similar sports. There are a lot of similarities there. I think it’s helped us grow in our relationship.
“Not to say we don’t argue over stuff.”
It’s never really serious, of course.
Who’s going to pay for lunch.
Squabbling over groceries.
But what unites them is far greater than what pushes them apart.
“It’s been hard because I’ve gotten hurt a couple times since being here,” Dawson said. “Things had been going well when I was healthy, and Devyn went through a small injury a while ago. It was nice to be able to tap into that and to relate on that level.
“Looking at sports and life in general, it’s a marathon. You can’t look at it like every opportunity and situation is going to be a high and you’re going to be doing great. It’s the stock market, the S&P 500.
“From a day or week perspective, there might be a lot of lows. But if you look over a five-year period, it’s going to be green and moving up.”
At the Arizona softball team's recent preseason media day, UA players discuss expectations this season, while head coach Caitlin Lowe shares here thoughts on the identity of her 2023 Wildcat team and how the transfer portal is impacting the sport. Video by Devin Homer/Special to the Arizona Daily Star
