Diamond girl: Geibel multi-sport star Holloman soared in softball
Submitted photo
Carla Holloman Stavish displays some of the trophies she won while playing baseball for the Clark League Bears when she was 10 years old.
Submitted photo
Geibel Catholic graduate Carla Holloman Stavish is shown during her playing days at Allegheny College.
Submitted photo
Geibel Catholic graduate Carla Holloman Stavish is shown during her playing days at Allegheny College.
Carla Holloman Stavish had an early start in athletics and it served her well in what turned out to be an outstanding career.
“I believe I was seven when I started playing Little League,” Holloman Stavish recalled. “Prior to that it was just going with my dad and he was playing softball and I would go out there with the guys and shag fly balls.”
Holloman Stavish quickly made a name for herself. With the R.W. Clark Tigers she won the Most Valuable Player Award. At 10, she joined the Clark League Bears (Ages 10-11). In her final season she hurled four no-hitters plus a perfect game and won another MVP Award. Holloman Stavish was the only girl in the league.
“I didn’t really think about playing with boys,” Holloman Stavish said. “Usually the team I was playing on I was very much accepted. There were a few times when a team within the league or if we would go to a tournament to play I would hear some comments being made. But I didn’t really think much about it or let it bother me.”
Holloman Stavish continued to shine in HARC Pony League (11-12-13) and Teener League (14-15-16) for the Yankees and Twins as a shortstop and pitcher.
She was a well known commodity when she took her athletic skills to Geibel High School where she won nine letters in volleyball, basketball and softball.
Holloman Stavish also made her mark playing for the Westmoreland Gems in the Western Pennsylvania Women’s Fast Pitch League as a star second baseman.
“We were pretty good,” Holloman Stavish stated. “We traveled all over and it was a lot of fun and was interesting going all over and playing teams from all over the country. I played against a lot of good talent.”
At Geibel, Holloman Stavish was a two-year standout on the volleyball team. Geibel won two section titles when Holloman Stavish played. She was MVP of the Fayette County Tournament. Geibel was beaten by Elderton in the Class AA semifinals in 1987. Holloman Stavish was second team All-WPIAL.
“We were very competitive in our section for volleyball and were ranked in the WPIAL,” Holloman Stavish said.
In basketball, Holloman Stavish was a letter-winner three of the four years she played. The Lady Gators were very successful. In 1985-86 they lost to Farrell, 34-29, in the WPIAL Class A semifinals and then were beaten by Linesville, 64-46, in the PIAA Tournament.
In 1986-87, Geibel had a deep run in the WPIAL playoffs. The Lady Gators lost to Monaca in the Class A final, 46-41, and then were beaten in the PIAA Tournament by Ferndale, 68-59.
The Lady Gators finally broke through and capture the WPIAL Class A title in 1987-88 when they defeated Monaca, 55-54, on a shot with two seconds remaining in the game by Michelle Fuller. They beat Union, 52-50, and McConnellsburg, 60-48, in the PIAA playoffs before being ousted by Ferndale, 69-40, finishing the season with a 25-3 record.
“That shot by Fuller was pretty awesome, it was great,” Holloman Stavish said. “Winning a championship was great after we had come close the year before. We were a very close-knit team.”
John Mongell coached Geibel girl’s basketball at that time.
“Coach Mongell was a nice guy,” Holloman Stavish said. “He was really nice and a good coach.”
Holloman Stavish was All-Section in basketball as a junior and a senior.
Softball was the sport where Holloman Stavish really left her mark. She was All-County four years in a row for the Lady Gators and was the first freshman ever to garner All-County honors. She batted .554 with four home runs and 27 RBIs as a senior. She was named to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Softball All-Star team as a shortstop her senior season. She helped propel the Lady Gators to the section title and their first WPIAL playoff appearance. They beat Canevin, 10-0, and lost to Chartiers-Houston in the semifinals, 9-0. Geibel finished the season with a record of 17-1.
At Geibel, Kathy Hillen coached Holloman Stavish in softball and volleyball.
“She was a great coach and easy to get along with,” Holloman Stavish recalled. “We would have fun, but when it was time to get down to business we knew what we had to do.”
Looking back, Holloman Stavish wasn’t shy about which sport was her favorite.
“Softball was absolutely my favorite sport,” Holloman Stavish said.
After graduating from Geibel in 1988, Holloman Stavish made a choice to accept a softball scholarship to Allegheny College.
“I looked at West Virginia who offered a volleyball scholarship,” Holloman Stavish recalled. “My heart was with softball and I chose that path.”
At Allegheny, Holloman Stavish was a key cog on two teams that went to the NCAA Division III Championships after capturing the Central Regional title. As a freshman she played second base and hit .350 and was on the All-Region team. As a sophomore she batted .396 and was named First Team All-American. She also played basketball one season for the Lady Gators and averaged 5.1 ppg.
“When you win the awards it’s nice and exciting,” Holloman Stavish said. “You can look back and be proud of yourself. When it happened or when the season was going on I didn’t think about it. I take a lot of pride in what I accomplished.”
Following her sophomore year at Allegheny, Holloman Stavish decided to pursue a nursing career and finished her academic career at the University of North Carolina Charlotte.
“It was really tough to give up athletics,” Holloman Stavish explained. “Academically I wasn’t finding anything there that I wanted to pursue. I thought about playing once I transferred, but the way my classes were and clinicals it was going to be tough.”
Holloman Stavish works at the Huntsville Hospital Health System in Alabama as a medical auditor/charge master coordinator. She and her husband Larry have been married 26 years and they have an 18-year-old son Nick. Softball hasn’t left her completely and she has coached some local teams.
Looking back she is grateful for the lessons she learned from athletics.
“I can’t imagine somebody playing sports and not learning anything from it,” Holloman Stavish said. “You learn to work together and communicate.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.