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SHIPPENSBURG – They knew there would be tears when it ended. They were hoping they would be tears of joy.
Instead, the tears that fell as members of the Central Bucks South softball team stood – arms linked – on the third base line of Shippensburg University’s Robb Field were tears of disappointment. The Titans’ dream of a state championship had ended in their 1-0 loss to District 7 champion Mount Lebanon in Friday morning’s PIAA Class AAAA title game.
“We were all pumped up, we were excited, and we were ready to go,” senior captain Taylre Stocks said. “We were practicing so hard. We deserved to be here. We were just so ready.“It’s hard to see it end. I have been playing since I was five years old.”
“I can’t even talk,” said senior captain Shana Steigerwalt, biting back tears. “It’s really hard. These girls will always be (my) friends, but it’s the last game I’ll play as a Titan.
“This school has been such a big part of my life and so has this team. It’s hard to say good-bye to everyone.”
The Titans’ dream ended because a pitcher named Geena Badolato picked Friday to turn in the game of her young career, fanning 11 and never allowing a base runner as she tossed the first ever perfect game in a PIAA softball final.
“She pitched a real good game,” Steigerwalt said. “She was throwing us out, and when we would crowd the plate, she would go right back in at us. She had a really good change-up that got a lot of us.
“It wasn’t our best game. It wasn’t the way we wanted our season to end, but we had a great season, and you can only look positively on the season.”
“This is so surreal – I can’t even believe it,” Stocks added. “We had this game. We just weren’t hitting.
“We have seen pitchers like her before. We have seen her speed, we have seen her movement. She was hitting the corners, and we just weren’t on today.”
South’s Fran Carrullo pitched well enough to win on most days, allowing just four hits while fanning six in another standout effort. One of the Blue Devils’ hits, however, was a solo blast by Tess Apke, and that was the only run Badolato would need.
The junior mound ace and captain – who has made a verbal commitment to play for St. John’s – acknowledged that she was surprised by her team’s suddenly silent bats.
“It’s surprising because we came out all year hitting the ball, hitting the ball,” Carrullo said. “Even if we didn’t get them coming out, we still got the hits in the sixth or seventh inning.
“I was actually very patient waiting for our team to hit. I have so much confidence that they will get hits for me, but it happens. It had to go either way, and today it went their way.”
For Badolato, who is bound for Robert Morris on a softball scholarship, the perfect game was her first ever, and the senior hurler admits she surprised even herself.“I have no-hitters, but I tend to move the ball a lot – to bring it inside, so I’m used to hitting a batter or walking a batter to get on base,” she said. “To be able to do that in my last game my senior year – that was just great.”
Badolato says she had no idea she was working on a perfect game until the bottom of the sixth inning.
“I saw the scoreboard, and I said something to our scorekeeper,” she said. “Nobody said anything. She didn’t really acknowledge it.
“Out on the field, I forget about that, but I started to get nervous in the dugout when I realized it.”
The Titans’ hopes to break up Badolato’s no-hit bid rested on their top three batters in the lineup in the seventh inning. The senior pitcher – also an outstanding fielder - speared a screaming line drive off the bat of Steigerwalt for the inning’s first out.
“I knew it was going to be my last at-bat as a Titan, and I wanted to go out and do what I’ve been doing the past three years and hope for the best,” Steigerwalt said.
The rest was easy as Badolato retired the next batter she faced on a grounder back to the mound and then put an exclamation point on the perfect performance with a strikeout.
“They all were good batters,” she said. “I definitely wasn’t expecting this after seeing them play.”
Badloato and her father made the trip to Pates Park in Allentown to watch the Titans’ semifinal game against Governor Mifflin on Monday after Lebo defeated Hatboro-Horsham in the other semifinal at Shippensburg.
“We knew they were a good hitting team and a great fielding team,” she said. “It just worked the way it worked – the umpire giving me the corners and what-not. It was a great game, and the girls were fielding great behind me. You need a full team to get a perfect game. The pitcher can’t do it herself.”
The game’s biggest defensive play came in the fifth when third baseman Kathleen Mathison speared a nasty line drive by Morgan Decker for the inning’s first out. Take away Steigerwalt’s hard-hit liner in the seventh, and the rest of the outs were relatively easy as the Titans did not hit a ball out of the infield in the entire game.
Four days earlier, Badolato took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of her team’s 2-1 win over Hatboro, but the senior hurler wasn’t nearly as dominant as she was in Friday’s win. In Monday’s semifinal, Badolato fanned just four and fielded more than a few hard-hit balls up the middle before allowing two hits and an unearned run in the seventh.
“I definitely have off days and good days, but a lot of it is mental,” Badolato said. “I was just so psyched for this game, but I was able to remain calm, which is something I normally have trouble with.
“Being able to do that – I was able to focus on my pitching.”
Badolato set the tone for the game when she fanned the first batter of the game on a nasty change-up.
“That was huge,” she said. “I think the first batter sets the tone for the entire team, whether it’s our team or the other team. That to me is the most important out of the game.
“Whatever happens to that batter, the rest of the team will normally follow suit.”
That certainly was the case in the top of the first as Badolato went on to strike out the side.
Badolato got the only run she would need when Apke ripped a 2-1 pitch over the fence in right center field with two outs in the bottom of the first.
“It was supposed to be a curveball off the plate, and I kind of hung it,” said Carrullo. “Even though I let that up, we need runs to win, but if I took that pitch back, where would we be now. I’d really like to know, but I guess I still have next year to find out.”
Badolato says she knew her team was onto something special when Apke hit her solo blast.
“That sealed the deal for me,” she said. “It would have been nice to get more, but Tess coming through with that put me in a comfort place.”
Still, with six innings left to play, it was hard to imagine that the Titans couldn’t get that early run back.
“I honestly didn’t think we would have trouble coming back, getting the runs we needed and getting the runners on base, but it just didn’t turn out that way today,” Steigerwalt said.
And it was the Titans’ inability to generate any offense that was difference in the game.“Their batters were good,” coach Jennifer Robinson said. “They were putting the ball in play, but our defense was handling it. We just weren’t able to balance it with the offense.”
“Their pitcher definitely kept us off balance. She had one of the better changeups we have seen all season. Other girls will throw the changeup, but they won’t hit for a strike like she was able to do.”
South put its name in the record books as the first team in program history to advance to the state title game.
“To get this far, we’re setting a mile marker in our school history,” Robinson said. “I told the girls – most people in their lifetime will never get to experience this.
“I can only be happy and proud. The only sad part in my heart is for my seniors. I just feel for them. They’re going back to graduation. I know they’re still excited to graduate, but it would have been a little nicer for them to go home with the gold and walk in front of their classmates.”
Instead, they left with the silver, and it won’t take long for them to realize that winning the silver is something to be very proud of as well.
MOUNT LEBANON 1, CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 0
CB South (0) – Shana Steigerwalt rf 3 0 0 0; Jae Epstein lf 3 0 0 0; Haileigh Stocks 2b 3 0 0 0; Morgan Decker 3b 2 0 0 0; Lauren Klepchick c 2 0 0 0; Dani London dp 2 0 0 0; Michelle Gessner ss 2 0 0 0; Taylre Stocks 1b 2 0 0 0; Tyler Vitelli cf 2 0 0 0; Fran Carrullo p 0 0 0 0. TOTALS 21 0 0 0
Mt Lebanon (1) – Ashley Darabant cf 3 0 0 0; Jen Bahm c 3 0 1 0; Jess Apke ss 3 1 2 1; Bre Tongel 1b 2 0 0 0; Kathleen Mathison 3b 3 0 0 0; Kaitlin Klinchock 2b 2 0 1 0; Geena Badolato p 2 0 0 0; Julz Tindall dp 2 0 0 0; Ali Casiere lf 2 0 0 0; Alexa Hagenbrock rf 0 0 0 0 . TOTALS 22 1 4 1.
CB South 000 000 0 0-0-0
Mt. Lebanon 100 000 x 1-4-0
E-CB South 0, Mt. Lebanon 0. LOB-CB South 0, Mt Lebanon 4. HR-Jess Apke.
IP H R ER BB SO
Central Bucks South
Carrullo (L) 6 4 1 1 1 6
Mt Lebanon
Badolato (W) 7 0 0 0 0 11
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