Rockets soared; Leps prowled
There’s an old saying that reads “To the victor go the spoils.”
That’s the case with the Herald-Standard 2015 All-Area Softball Team.
Belle Vernon and Jefferson-Morgan both won WPIAL championships this season and, not surprisingly, the Players and Coaches of the Year come from those two squads.
The two selected as the top players were both outstanding pitchers and great hitters.
The Big School (Class AAAA-AAA) Player of the Year is freshman sensation Bailey Parshall who showed why she is already a Penn State recruit by helping lead the Lady Leopards to the Class AAA title.
The Small School (Class AA-A) Player of the Year is senior star Maddie Ludrosky who was almost flawless in the WPIAL postseason in sparking the Lady Rockets to the Class A crown.
Belle Vernon’s Tom Rodriguez is the Big School Coach of the Year for guiding his team to a WPIAL title one year after a 5-12 season.
The Small School Coach of the Year, Jefferson-Morgan’s Tony Barbetta, on the other hand, was coming off a 16-4 season in which his team won a pair of playoff games and was expected to be a top contender in 2015. Even so, Barbetta’s team had to deal with the crushing emotional blow of having a member of his coaching staff and father of one of his players, Chris Dugan, lose his battle with colon cancer soon after the playoffs began, and had to overcome one of the state’s best softball programs, multiple-state champion Chartiers-Houston, to win J-M’s first ever WPIAL softball championship.
Ludrosky was 15-3 with 170 strikeouts, giving her 505 for her career. She had a miniscule 0.69 ERA and walked only 20 batters in 112 1/3 innings.
Ludrosky was at the top of her game for the WPIAL playoffs, allowing just 13 hits in 27 innings with 52 strikeouts and, amazingly, no walks in going 4-0.
“Maddie got to the point where she really started believing in herself,” Barbetta said. “I always said, ‘She doesn’t realize who good she could be.’ This year she just got better and better.”
Ludrosky helped herself a lot with the bat as well, hitting .400 with 17 RBIs.
Small School Player-of-the-Year runners-up are Waynesburg Central senior third baseman Hannah Gibbons, a Penn State recruit, and Carmichaels senior pitcher Erica Burns, who went over the 500 strikeout mark for her career.
Parshall fashioned a sparkling 21-2 record this season with 214 strikeouts, a 1.47 ERA and a paltry .182 batting average against. At the plate, the lefty hurler and swinger hit to the tune of a .418 batting average with 12 doubles and 17 RBIs.
Parshall also came through in the clutch at the plate. She singled in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh in a 3-2 victory over Southmoreland in the WPIAL semifinals, and was in the middle of Belle Vernon’s stunning four-run rally, again in the bottom of the seventh, that lifted the Lady Leopards over Yough in the WPIAL final, 5-4.
“She is a great pitcher but she was my best hitter, too,” Rodriguez said. “From the beginning what I liked about Bailey was she was one of the hardest working kids. And she was so calm and collected for a freshman. I almost never had to tell her anything and very seldom did she ask me anything. She was very composed.
“What made her such a good pitcher was not only did she have good speed, but also a good curveball, a good screwball and her riseball was really coming on since the beginning of the year.”
Big School Player-of-the-Year Runners-up are Southmoreland junior outfielder Briana Bunner and Uniontown infielder Leighlyn Guthrie. Bunner hit .500 with 26 RBIs and four home runs, including two walk-off blasts, one for a grand slam.
Rodriguez had other stars on his team, including two who joined Parshall on the Big School First Team in senior catcher Nicole Ashcraft and senior outfielder Emily Frederick.
“Coming off a 5-12 season I thought we’d be better but I never imagined we would do this well and win the WPIAL title,” said Rodriguez, who claimed his second crown as Lady Leopards coach. “This had to be one of the most exciting seasons I’ve ever had.”
Especially in the postseason.
After cruising to an 11-1 win over Mount Pleasant in the first round, Belle Vernon defeated South Fayette in the quarterfinals, 1-0, on Frederick’s home run, her team’s only hit as Parshall fired a three-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts.
The Lady Leopards rallied from a late 2-0 deficit against the Lady Scotties to win on Parshall’s walk-off hit.
Belle Vernon trailed Yough 4-0 in the final but Ashcraft’s clutch hit set up Frederick’s walk-off, two-run single, bringing in Ashcraft with the title-clinching run. The Lady Leps went on to win one PIAA playoff game before falling to eventual state runner-up Trinity.
Big School Coach-of-the-Year Runner-up is Todd Bunner of Southmoreland who guided the Lady Scotties to the WPIAL semifinals despite a team that battled several key injuries.
Jefferson-Morgan was in control most of the way in the first three rounds of its WPIAL run, winning by scores of 10-0 over Western Beaver, 3-1 over Sewickley Academy and 8-1 over Frazier.
Jefferson-Morgan found itself down 2-0 after four innings in the final against the top-seeded Lady Bucs, a team the Lady Rockets split with in the regular season and shared the Section 1-A crown with.
The Lady Rockets, inspired by a group of fans that called themselves Team Dugan in honor of the last assistant coach, rallied for three runs in the fifth to take a 3-2 lead. Two players who joined Ludrosky on the Small School First Team came up with the two biggest hits. Reagan Rush’s run-scoring single tied it and Morgan Simkovic’s RBI double brought in the deciding run.
Ludrosky shut down C-H from there and Jefferson-Morgan had the coveted trophy.
Barbetta would guide his team to its first ever PIAA playoff win as well.
The key was getting his team to do whatever it took to win games.
“We got to the point this year where it wasn’t all stats for them, it was all about winning,” said Barbetta, who is in his seventh year as J-M softball coach (94-40 record) and 42nd year overall as a multi-sport coach. “A player might not go 3-for-3 but they would do something else to help the team. Moving runners up and bunting and all the little things you need to do to win, all these players tried to do that.”
Barbetta kept his team on track despite Dugan’s death, the death of a player’s grandparent and one player being in a minor car accident.
Under Barbetta, J-M has gone a combined 60-19 the last four years and made the postseason three times.
Small School Coach-of-the-Year runners-up were Dave Briggs of Carmichaels, who didn’t allow a jump in classification to stop the Lady Mikes from winning yet another section title, and Paul Harvey of Frazier, who also won a section crown and guided his team to the WPIAL semifinals.
Here are the teams:
Big School
Player of the Year: Bailey Parshall, Belle Vernon. Runners-up: Briana Bunner, Southmoreland and Leighlyn Guthrie, Uniontown.
Coach of the Year: Tom Rodriguez, Belle Vernon. Runner-up: Todd Bunner, Southmoreland.
First Team
Bailey Parshall, Belle Vernon, Sr., P; Briana Bunner, Southmoreland, Jr., OF; Leighlyn Guthrie, Uniontown, Sr., IF; Nicole Ashcraft, Belle Vernon, SR., C; Emily Frederick, Belle Vernon, Sr., OF; Allyn Bezjak, Albert Gallatin, Fr., IF; Jackie Cramer, Connellsville, Jr., IF; Kristen Suhan, Southmoreland, Sr., 2B/P; Kaitlyn Faiola, Belle Vernon, Sr., OF; Katie Troisi-Clark, Southmoreland, So., P/3B.
Second Team
Adeline Nicholson, Southmoreland; Bethany Bunner, Southmoreland; Makenna Myers, Southmoreland; Olivia Porter, Southmoreland; Sarah Simsic, Belle Vernon; Megan Christner, Belle Vernon; Deanna DeLorenzo, Albert Gallatin; Tia Forsythe, Uniontown; Alexa Peton, Laurel Highlands.
Honorable Mention
Albert Gallatin: Kassie Miller, Ashley Dubovich, Katie Kelly.
Connellsville: Kelsi Burkholder, Emily Kessler, Francesca Stefano, Brooke Miller.
Laurel Highlands: Hannah Duranko, Danielle Jones, Gigi Beatty, Kate Sutton.
Uniontown: Emily Frazee, Bailey Hoover, Milissa Lucas.
Small School
Player of the Year: Maddie Ludrosky, Jefferson-Morgan. Runners-up: Hannah Gibbons, Waynesburg Central and Erica Burns, Carmichaels.
Coach of the Year: Tony Barbetta, Jefferson-Morgan. Runners-up: Dave Briggs, Carmichaels and Paul Harvey, Frazier.
First Team
Maddie Ludrosky, Jefferson-Morgan, Sr., P; Hannah Gibbons, Waynesburg Central, Sr., 3B; Erica Burns, Carmichaels, Sr., P; Monica Joseph, Frazier, Sr., SS; Alexus Eicher, Frazier, Jr., 3B; Reagan Rush, Jefferson-Morgan, Sr., Morgan Simkovic, Jefferson-Morgan, Jr., IF; C; Paige Hotz, Frazier, Sr., P; Katie Mays, Carmichaels, Sr., C; Caroline Cree, Carmichaels, Sr., 2B.
Second Team
Bailey Bennington, West Greene; Camryn Dugan, Jefferson-Morgan; Cheyenne Wasko, Brownsville; Madison Renner, West Greene; Abby Shipley, Mapletown; Morgan Gamble, Jefferson-Morgan; Kelsey Holp, Frazier; Abby Gustovich, Beth-Center; Miranda Shepler, Frazer.
Honorable Mention
Brownsville: Allie Lint, Celina Smith, Hannah Batovsky, Tiffany Markovitch.
California: Liz Wohar.
Carmichaels: Natalie McNett, Morgan Faddis, Emma Lowry, Megan Walker, Lauren Walker.
Frazier: Kayla Matway, Hannah Kline.
Geibel Catholic: Carly Ward, Chelsey Ward, Karly Judy, Gillian Yourish, Gabby Yourish.
Jefferson-Morgan: Madison Dupont, Autumn Tedrow, Jessica Taylor, Brooke Diamond.
Mapletown: Abby McIntire, Lauren Adams, Jordan Adams, Elisa Clark, Makenzie Cree.
Waynesburg Central: Gabby Rose, Emma Ricciuti, Tiffany Ross, Taylor Staley, Tara Staley.
West Greene: Brittany Bonnema, Lexie Mooney, Shelby Morris, Sage Vliet.