Dream Still Comes True for Chapman’s Martinez : Softball: Despite leaving Division I power, Panther leadoff batter finds herself playing for a national championship.

Jennifer Martinez fully expected to spend her college softball career battling for NCAA titles. But when the year at Arizona, Division I softball’s latest dynasty, didn’t turn out the way she planned, she adjusted her goals.

Grade-point average replaced batting average as the statistic she most valued. Softball became something she played for fun.

But a funny thing happened on Martinez’s way to a degree: she wound up right back in the NCAA playoffs.

Friday, Martinez will be batting leadoff and playing center field as Chapman begins the NCAA Division III regional playoffs in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Top-seeded Chapman (37-5) plays No. 4 Simpson of Iowa (26-13) in the second game of the double-elimination regional. No. 2 Buena Vista of Iowa (23-9) plays No. 3 Cal Lutheran (28-10) in the first game.

Even though the level of play is different, Martinez is happy to be back.

“It might not be as tight a competition or as prestigious as a Division I title, but it’s still just as important and just as fun,” she said.

Perhaps more fun. Martinez left Arizona in 1992 after her freshman season when she was told that her full scholarship would be reduced to a partial scholarship.

Her time at Arizona had started well and she was expected to battle for playing time in the outfield before she was injured in a one-car automobile accident.

She, teammate Laura Espinoza and Espinoza’s cousin were returning to Tucson from the Phoenix airport late one night after Thanksgiving break when Espinoza fell asleep at the wheel. The pickup truck rolled off the highway.

No one was seriously injured, but Martinez’s broken collarbone, bruised sternum and three rotated discs kept her off the softball field for about three months.

After her recovery, Martinez believed she was ready to jump into the lineup. Arizona Coach Mike Candrea thought otherwise. First, he encouraged her to take the season off as a redshirt. After she declined, he used her sparingly as the Wildcats advanced to the Division I title game, losing to UCLA.

When Candrea told her that her scholarship was being reduced, Martinez was stunned. She decided to head home to El Monte and transfer to a community college.

“I had to re-evaluate my purpose for being in college,” Martinez said. “Was it to play softball or get an education? It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do.”

Ultimately, she decided to attend Citrus, a school near her home without much of a softball program. She took classes, working toward her goal to be a veterinarian. She played softball and adjusted to a different level. “I think we won a few games,” she said.

When she was ready to move back to a four-year school, she picked the private school with a good biology program that offered her the most financial aid. That turned out to be Chapman, and it turned out the Panthers had the makings of a pretty fine Division III team.

Martinez, 21, adds Division I talent, intensity and experience to the mix. She leads the team in batting with a .487 average and provides speed on the base paths and in the outfield.

In a way, she is right back where she expected to be.

“This is so much sweeter,” she said, “because it was nothing I planned on.”