What could have been: Carmichaels baseball, softball teams had high expectations
Carmichaels coach Dickie Krause (left) talks with Zach Gamble during a game against Brownsville last season. Gamble and four other Mikes lost their senior year due to the coronavirus. (Photo by Ed Thompson)
Carmichaels’ Dylan Wilson fires to first in an attempt to turn a double play during the Mikes’ WPIAL playoff win over Jeannette last year. Wilson was expected to be a key player on a strong Mikes team that won a section title last year and was looking for bigger things in 2020 until the coronavirus pandemic short-circuited the season. (Photo by Darnell Graham)
Carmichaels’ Kylie Sinn goes into her windup against Charleroi during a Section 3-AA game at Carmichaels on April 4 last year. The cononavirus pandemic wiped out the Seton Hill recruit’s senior season. (Photo by Ed Thompson)
Carmichaels softball coach Dave Briggs had high expectations in 2020 for a Lady Mikes team that defeated eventual state champion Frazier and won one WPIAL playoff game last year. (Photo by Rob Burchianti)
The following is one in a series of stories featuring local high schools which lost their spring sports seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Carmichaels is a perennial power in spring sports with programs that have won numerous section titles and multiple WPIAL championships in both baseball and softball. Optimism for the 2020 season was particularly high, especially in baseball, until the COVID-19 pandemic washed those dreams away.
“In baseball, they had a lot back and they were in for an exciting season,” Carmichaels AD John Krajnak said. “They had tied Chartiers-Houston last year for the section title. I feel real bad for not only the seniors but the whole team because they had very high expectations. Dickie Krause had them very well prepared.
“In softball, they were in a real tough section with Frazier, which was the PIAA champion last year, and Chartiers-Houston, but they were right there with those teams last year.
“I feel particularly bad for Kylie Sinn. She made all-state her sophomore and junior years and we thought she was going to come back and have a terrific year, and she was really excited about it. They had high expectations, too. They beat the state champs once last year. They had a big fundraiser and they were going to go south for a trip in about three days and then it was all cancelled.”
Krajnak has been involved in Greene County sports for decades and has never seen anything like the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is my 51st year that I’ve either been a coach or an athletic director,” Krajnak said. “I’ve never been exposed to anything like this. It’s got to be so difficult for the kids.”
It’s no one’s fault, Krajnak stressed.
“There’s nothing you can do. It’s a very concerned time for everybody,” Krajnak said. “You feel bad about it. For the seniors, it can’t be made up, their last season is lost.”
Baseball
The Mikes were coming off a 16-3 campaign that included a section crown and a playoff victory, and had many key pieces back this year.
“From purely a baseball standpoint we had the potential to have a very special year,” Carmichaels coach Dickie Krause said. “We went in knowing we had a lot back. We thought we had good pitching. We knew we were going to be pretty solid defensively. I thought, one-through-nine, we were probably going to be the deepest offensive lineup we’ve ever had. So, we had some pretty high expectations.
“I think what even made it worse for us is we had a really good early part of the season. Our optional workouts went really well, the kids were really engaged and then the first few weeks we were getting outside and had great practices. We were so far ahead of where we were at the same time last year on March 12. We had one scrimmage and looked really crisp.”
Then it all came to a sudden halt.
“There’s never a good time for something like this to happen,” Krause said. “We all understand that.”
Carmichaels’ players, especially seniors Zach Gamble, Logan Mayhle, Michael Robison, Taggert Shea and Dylan Wilson, were crushed.
“They’re not taking it well,” said Krause, who pointed out the program’s journey to the 2020 season was a long one, not just a spring happening.
“We do a lot of conditioning and a lot of optional things and we had a winter program in place and we had fall baseball,” Krause explained. “We played all the bigger schools in fall ball, like Uniontown, Connellsville, Belle Vernon, Albert Gallatin. Everything was well attended and working.
“The first couple weeks in March we started having formal practices, we looked good. We had more in than any other year that I had been coaching. We scrimmaged Monessen and it went really well for us, we threw about four or five kids and they all pounded the zone with strikes, hit the ball well, and I felt really good about it.”
The coronavirus effect was starting to take hold, however, and Krause and his players were well award of the situation.
“You had this lingering in the background, you knew it was going to happen,” Krause said. “We were putting equipment away after the scrimmage and one of our seniors, Dylan Wilson, who would’ve been a four-year starter, he just said, ‘You know Coach, that’s probably it for me.’
“I knew he was probably right, but I was trying to be encouraging and I said ‘I’m hoping not, I’m hoping we’ll get back on the field later in the spring.’ But he said, ‘No, this was probably my last game.’
“That was just heart-breaking. You have a kid who’s in his senior year, had started for three years, he had been interested in playing in college.”
Krause had two seniors who had worked their way into the starting lineup.
“Here are kids that were each waiting three years to get a chance to be an everyday player,” Krause said. “One of them, Taggart Shea, worked really hard. He was a golfer on the really good team they had in the fall and he still did fall baseball, too. He never missed a winter workout. He would’ve been starting every game as either an outfielder or a DH. You work that hard all that time at something and then your season is taken away.
“Logan Mayhle was a good pitcher for us in the past, but he was going to start for the first time for us somewhere in the infield.
“You have these kids who put in so much time and were so excited about their senior season, and then, poof. It’s gone. Just like that.”
Krause had no qualms about the WPIAL and PIAA decisions.
“I thought they both handled this perfectly,” he said. “They gave it a lot of time, they didn’t make any premature, inappropriate decisions, they let it play out, and I really appreciate them doing that. They did everything in their power to keep the winter sports alive and then the spring sports, but the virus just didn’t let them.”
Softball
Carmichaels went 14-6 last season, including a win over eventual state champion Frazier, and won a playoff game. The Lady Mikes only returned three seniors, but all were impact players led by ace pitcher Kylie Sinn, a Seton Hill recruit and WPIAL James Collins’ Scholar-Athlete Award winner.
“We were looking forward to the season,” Carmichaels coach Dave Briggs said. “Our seniors worked really, really hard in the offseason. We were ready to accept the challenge of our section. We competed last year with the top teams.”
The Lady Mikes now must wait until 2021 when they’ll need someone new in the circle to replace Sinn.
“She’s probably one of the most recruited players I’ve ever had,” Briggs said. “They all took it tough but she probably took it the toughest. Kylie worked so hard this offseason.”
Sinn, who had a 1.97 ERA with 153 strikeouts in 121 innings pitched last season, was a two-way threat for the Lady Mikes.
“A lot of people talk about her pitching, which of course she’s very good at, but her bat has really improved over the four years she’s been here,” Briggs said. “I thought she had a break-out season last year at the plate. I think she was going to have a great year as a hitter with power and driving in runs and average. She was underrated batting-wise.”
Sinn hit a team-high .492 last year with five doubles, four triples, three home runs, 16 RBI and 28 runs.
“I was looking forward to the season,” Sinn said. “Our team was ready to make a big impact in our section. I know we could have gone a long way and done a lot.”
Abigail Fordyce was a solid catcher who worked well with Sinn and Emily Conklin, an outfielder, was the team’s second-leading hitter in 2019.
“I expected big things from them also,” said Briggs, who recalled how the season ended.
“We had a last practice on a Friday when everything was still up in the air. I don’t think any of us then thought it was going to get to this point. You really didn’t know what was going to happen.
“It’s just sad. You don’t have much closure. Those three seniors really love softball. They just loved to play.”
(Joe Tuscano contributed to this story.)