Following a great act isn’t anything new for Lacey Middlebrooks.

Coming from a Texas sports family, including an older brother playing professional baseball, the U. Minnesota Gophers softball pitcher thrives on competition and believes in hard work, both of which helped her as she joined a team trying to fill a hole left by one of the program’s best pitchers.

Through the season’s first seven weeks, Middlebrooks admits she has exceeded her own expectations. She leads the Big Ten in starts, wins and innings pitched and is second in strikeouts.

Adding to that are 20 complete games — including four shutouts and a no-hitter — and all of the Gophers’ 15 wins this season.

“I’m not saying I wasn’t confident in my ability, but it’s just a lot to take in … [as] a freshman coming in,” Middlebrooks said. “I can only keep working harder to keep moving up.”

Middlebrooks competed for years with her older brother, Will, who now plays in the Boston Red Sox minor league organization. She said they would often go with their father to practice hitting or pitching.

“You had someone to fight with. You had someone to make you better,” Middlebrooks said.

Will Middlebrooks was a sports star at Liberty-Eylau High School in Texarkana, Texas and was drafted by the Red Sox in the fifth round of the first-year players draft in June 2007 . Lacey still had two years to carry on the family’s athletic success in high school.

“It was almost a shadow, but we were so competitive that I didn’t want to do anything but be better than him,” said Middlebrooks, who led Liberty-Eylau’s softball team to the state championship game as a junior.

But Middlebrooks was denied further high school success when she tore an anterior cruciate ligament and medial and lateral meniscus at the beginning of her senior season of high school volleyball.

Reconstructive knee surgery and the subsequent recovery kept her from playing softball the following spring, and she played only eight games last summer.

For the intense Middlebrooks, the experience taught her patience.

“I’m not a patient person,” Middlebrooks said. “I think it took something drastic to make me realize that I can work harder … I realized what more hard work and patience will do for me, and when you work harder, you get more success.”

While Middlebrooks was working to get back on the field, the Gophers were playing their final season with ace Briana Hassett.

Hassett set Minnesota’s single-season records for complete games and strikeouts in 2009 and finished her career with the most complete games in program history.

Senior outfielder Heidi Carls, who entered the program in 2005-06 along with Hassett, knew this season’s young pitching staff, including Middlebrooks and sophomore Alissa Koch, would have to carry the load.

“I knew that we were just going to have to let them know that they were going to have to work really, really hard and fill in some shoes,” Carls said.

Middlebrooks didn’t need much of a reminder, Carls learned.

“She works hard, she has a great mindset, she’s aggressive, she’s tough, she’s not going to let anybody walk all over her,” Carls said. “She’s kind of her own little breed. She’s very focused between the ears.”

Middlebrooks has started fast, but she still has room to become a great pitcher, according to Gophers third-year pitching coach Piper Marten, the program’s all-time leader in games pitched, innings, wins and strikeouts from a career that spanned 2001 to 2004.

Marten said Middlebrooks has succeeded by “hitting her spots” and throwing two solid pitches — a dropball and changeup. If Middlebrooks could develop another pitch each year, Marten said she could be even tougher on hitters.

“It’s up to her,” Marten said. “I think if she stays consistent on the mound, mentally and physically, she’ll be fine.”

Middlebrooks said she has been motivated by pitching in 14 one-run games, including six losses in such contests.

So, what does she think will keep her rolling?

“Hard work overpowers talent, overpowers getting a lucky hit or something,” Middlebrooks said. “Having that intensity to want to get better.”