May 7, 2026 By Rob Burchianti 8 min read

Becky Howell looked at her slim roster and made her players aware going in this would be the last season for Penn State Fayette softball.

Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus will close its doors next spring but, with no more recruits able to come in, the third-year Roaring Lions coach knew she didn’t have the numbers to keep the program going beyond 2026.

“I don’t have any seniors but I knew I was losing a couple girls who had to transfer to the main campus because of their academics,” Howell said. “It was just going to be too hard to build a team for next year.

“We all knew this was it. So they took it and ran with it and set records and made a name for themselves. I’m very proud of that.”

Did they ever. Talk about going out in a blaze of glory.

The Roaring Lions made a run for the ages in the PSUAC tournament, going 4-0 as the seventh and last seed, to claim their first conference championship.

Fayette finished the regular season with a 4-16-1 overall record and a 3-11 conference mark but caught fire in the postseason.

“We didn’t expect it. Nobody expected it,” Howell said. “They accomplished something that nobody in the PSUAC had ever done before. We’re the lowest seed to ever win the tournament. That’s the first championship for Fayette.”

All four playoff victories came against the top three seeds in surprisingly convincing fashion at Heindl Field in DuBois.

Riding Makenzee Kenney’s arm and Kylie Stevenson’s smoking bat, Fayette started with 5-1 wins over third-seeded Schuylkill last Friday and second-seeded Mont Alto on Saturday, then defeated top-seeded New Kensington later on Saturday, 12-4 in six innings. They took out Mont Alto again on Sunday, 14-8, to win the title.

New Kensington entered the tournament with a 22-9 record. Mont Alto was 23-11-1. Schuylkill was 21-14. Yet all fell to the four-win Roaring Lions.

“The drive home was quite fun and very loud,” Howell said with a laugh.

As a result, Fayette will play in its first USCAA Small College World Series, starting on Monday with a 6 p.m. game against No. 1 seed Florida National, back at DuBois.

How did her team pull it off?

“I had told the girls before the season the format for the playoffs was changing because of the closures of several of the campuses, and that every team would be in the playoffs regardless of their record,” Howell said. “Basically from that moment on, sure, we wanted to compete and give everything we’ve got, but what we really used the season for was our development, our learning, our bonding and our adjustments and the things we needed to do to prepare for the playoffs.

“We knew we had talent on the team, even if it might not necessarily show in the stats and record, to maybe make an impact in the tournament. The wins and the losses didn’t matter to us as much, what mattered more was what we took and learned from every game, seeing what we needed to work on in practice and then also making sure we stayed sharp in what we were doing well.”

“It was something nobody else could see because they didn’t understand our mentality in what we were doing. But we knew, we could see the improvement.”

Even so, Howell herself was amazed at how well her team played in the postseason.

“I’m going to be honest, we didn’t know we would do what we just did,” Howell said. “But we did know we could be competitive in the playoffs, much more so than what our record showed.”

What made Fayette’s title even more unlikely was it came with their top pitcher on the shelf.

“My pitcher heading into the season was actually Sidney Bergman, but unfortunately she went down with an injury about four weeks ago that prevented her from pitching, although she could still swing a bat,” Howell explained. “Makenzee Kenney was my backup pitcher who I actually brought in as a first or second baseman. Before this season she probably hadn’t pitched since high school. She stepped up in a big way.”

The impending campus closure resulted in Howell not having much pitching depth.

“I had a recruitment class of about 12 or 13 kids and when Penn State University announced our campus closure I lost six of them, two of them being pitchers,” Howell said. “My first-year kids that are on my roster, such as Sidney, Kendra Firestone, Haylee Speicher, those girls stayed and committed themselves to Fayette, but I lost some pitching which took me back to Bergman and Kenney as being my main two with Sidney being my workhorse and Kenney giving her a break at times. That strategy obviously changed with Sidney’s injury.”

Kenney opened the playoffs with consecutive five-hitters, allowed three earned runs against New Kensington and gave up five earned runs in the finale.

Meanwhile, Stevenson went a combined 10 for 12 for a sizzling .833 batting average with two doubles, three home runs and 10 RBIs in the four games.

“Kylie Stevenson was on fire the entire weekend,” Howell said. “She was lights out. She led our conference in batting and was over 100 points higher than the next hitter (.621 to teammate Haylee Speicher’s .483).”

Fayette trailed Mont Alto 1-0 in the final game before going ahead to stay with a five-run second inning that included a grand slam by Taylor Doppelheuer.

The Roaring Lions unleashed an 18-hit attack that buried Mont Alto.

Doppelheuer had two hits and five RBIs, Kendra Firestone was 3 for 4 with three RBIs, Stevenson had two hits, including a solo home run, and two RBIs, Julie Cooper contributed a double, single and an RBI, and Speicher and Hayleigh Vance both had two hits and an RBI. Even Kenney helped her own cause with a pair of hits.

“Everybody on the team played key roles in our championship run,” Howell said.

The Roaring Lions’ starting lineup for the tournament included plenty of local talent, starting with Cooper, a Laurel Highlands graduate, at catcher.

“Julie Cooper definitely deserves a shout out,” Howell said. “She was not a catcher by trade and she put on the gear from day one. She’s caught every single game this season and that’s a tough thing to do.”

Kenney is a Greensburg Central Catholic graduate while Bergman is from Yough. Stevenson, a Hempfield graduate, mans first base with Takiah Cheathan at second, who Howell gave a special mention.

“Takiah is from Maryland and is actually a basketball player who two years ago I begged to play softball so I could have a team,” Howell pointed out. “And she has developed into my second baseman.”

Southmoreland graduates Taylor and Kaylee Doppelheuer are at shortstop and third base, respectively, with the outfield consisting of Speicher of Berlin Brothersvalley in left, Laurel Highlands graduate Firestone in center and Albert Gallatin graduate Vance in right.

Howell, a 1996 Albert Gallatin graduate who played basketball and softball for the Lady Colonials, lauded Vance.

“Hayleigh hadn’t played for awhile and said I’d like to try again and here she’s made her way into my five-hole hitter,” Howell said. “She puts the ball in play and knocks in runs which is pretty good for someone who hadn’t picked up a bat in years.”

Howell has two assistant coaches in her husband Mike Howell and Kenney’s father, Nathan Kenney.

Becky and Mike aren’t the only members of the Howell family to be part of a suprising softball team this season. Their daughter Kayla Howell is a senior top hitter and key player for Laurel Highlands, which reached the WPIAL playoffs for the first time in 13 years.

“Who’s to say they can’t do what we did?” Becky Howell said.

Howell is sad to see Fayette closing its doors next year.

“I’m an alum, I went to Penn State Behrend, but I’m from this area and I was sending them emails when the possibility of the closure came about, trying to explain to them how important Fayette really is to this community,” Howell said.

She said her team will try to enjoy its final games in the double-elimination USCAA tournament.

“We have no expectations,” she said. “We weren’t supposed to be anywhere near the conference championship game and we not only got there but won it. We’re just going to do what we’ve been doing and see how it plays out.

“We’re hoping if any of our friends and fans don’t have anything to do and want to come up, it’s only about a two-hour drive and Heindl Field is a very nice field and facility. We’d love to have some Fayette support see these girls play one last time.”