Jackie Cramer, softball

Jackie Cramer comes from an athletic family, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she plans to continue playing softball in college.
The Connellsville senior second baseman also sports a 3.6 grade-point average that she will parlay into a partial softball scholarship to Wheeling Jesuit University, where she will study nursing.
Because of that, Cramer, daughter of Laura and Jerry Cramer of Indian Head, is Connellsville’s female spring sports selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program. She has two older siblings who played sports at Connellsville and in college. Jerry, 23, wrestled at Thiel College and Julie, 21, played softball at Shippensburg University.
“I used to pitch, but when I started thinking about college and playing softball there, they wanted me mostly for second base or infield, so that’s when I began focusing on second base,” Cramer said. “Biology has always interested me and it led me to want to become a nurse.”
Since she is a senior this year, Cramer tried her hand at a different sport. “I never played any other sports for the school, but I tried tennis in the fall,” Cramer said. “It was fun, something different. But I’ve always been a softball player.”
In fact, growing up with softball provided Cramer with a memory she won’t soon forget.
“It was from a travel game a couple of years ago, but it’s always been a memory that has stuck with me,” Cramer said, referring to her time with the Connellsville Cobras. “I broke my pinkie finger diving back into a bag. Then, one of the girls on my team got a nose bleed out of nowhere, so they stuck a glove on my hand and sent me to right field with a broken finger. Then, there was a line drive out to right field and it was the last out.
“I broke my pinkie diving back into first base earlier in that game. I knew it was broken right away. My dad was my coach and he just said to suck it up, that I would be OK.”
Apparently father knows best. Cramer is better than just OK and the Lady Falcons are glad of it.
“I expect a lot of good things from this team, especially with two new coaches,” Cramer said. “We lost a lot of seniors from last year’s team, but we have a decent team with a lot of young girls that are very well prepared to play at this level. I expect great things from the whole team.”
Felicia Domasky was an assistant last year in her first year out of college, but is head coach now and Jenn Stefano, in her first year out of college, is the assistant. Domasky, from Mount Pleasant, played outfield and pitched at Seton Hill University and Stefano, a Connellsville grad, caught at Chatham University.
“They are both younger and know a lot about the game because they both played in college,” Cramer said. “Felicia will pitch to us in practice because she pitched at Seton Hill. They are both young enough to show us how to do something.”
Chances are, Cramer won’t require much specific instruction on how to play this game. But she’ll likely soak up all of the instruction she can get from these two recent college graduates and softball players.