School: Hatboro-Horsham
Tennis, Softball
Favorite athlete: Chase Utley
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Competing in the state semifinals last year for softball
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: The most embarrassing moment happened to me a few years ago during a travel game. I was running back in center field to catch a fly ball, and I ran right into the fence and broke it. I landed right on top of a parent watching the game!
Music on iPod: Most Taylor Swift but a little bit of everything
Future plans: I plan to go to college to study Nutrition/Dietetics
Words to live by: “Everything happens for a reason.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel to Italy and have a family
Hatboro-Horsham coach Joe DiFilippo, by his own admission, can’t say enough good things about Melissa Spinosa.
“She’s just a great kid,” the Hatters’ coach said. “Whatever you tell her to do – she tries 100 percent to do exactly what you tell her to do. She’s a pleasure to coach.
“As far as with the other kids – she’s a very quiet kid, and I don’t think you will ever find a kid that has a bad thing to say about her.”
Spinosa is student-athlete who has found a way to get the most out of her high school experience. An excellent student, the Hatboro-Horsham senior is a member of the Student Council and helped spearhead the school’s ‘Feed a Friend’ food drive. That’s just one of many community service projects she’s been involved in over the course of her high school years.
A three-year starter for Hatboro’s varsity softball team, Spinosa played third singles for the tennis team in the fall and opted to run winter track for the first time this year.
“I wasn’t able to make a lot of the meets because of softball, but I always went to practice,” she said. “Sometimes in winter, you don’t run as much, but it kept me running and moving during the winter.
“I think it helped me keep up with my speed.”
And it is Spinosa’s speed that makes her such a dangerous leadoff hitter for the Hatters. In her team’s season opener against Lansdale Catholic, Spinosa legged out a bunt single that loaded the bases and set the stage for a bases-clearing triple by teammate Julie Wambold that propelled the Hatters to a 6-3 win.
Spinosa’s speed also is a huge asset in the outfield where the senior captain is playing center field.
“She is a well above average outfielder,” DiFilippo said. “She has a very good arm, and her speed makes up for everything. She’s just so fast.
“I have her batting leadoff mainly for her speed because she can bunt and get on base. She is quick, and she can also drive the ball.”
Batting leadoff was a new experience for Spinosa, who played right field her first two years on the varsity and batted in the middle of the lineup. She got her first taste of hitting leadoff last fall for her Horsham Banshees travel team.
“I wasn’t sure how I would like leadoff, but I really enjoyed it,” she said.
Spinosa has been playing competitive softball since she was seven years old when she began playing for Montgomery Township. In third grade, she switched to the Horsham Little League after her family moved into the area.
“I wanted to play at a higher level, so I joined the Horsham Banshees when I was 11, and I have been playing for the Banshees ever since then,” she said.
Spinosa came by her love of softball honestly.
“Baseball and softball kind of ran in my blood,” she said. “My dad and all of his brothers played baseball at CB West, so my dad signed me and my sisters up for little league.
“We liked it and picked it up pretty well.”
Basketball was also part of her repertoire until middle school, and as a freshman, she decided to go out for the tennis team.
“My sister (Michelle) played on the tennis team, and she got me into it and taught me how to play,” Spinosa said.
Interestingly, Melissa had never played tennis until a week before tryouts.
“It was similar to softball – a lot of the motions and stuff, and I picked it up pretty quick,” Spinosa said.
Did she ever.
After playing varsity doubles her first three years, Spinosa played third singles as a senior. Not a bad accomplishment for an athlete who acknowledges that she rarely picked up a tennis racquet during the off-season.
“I didn’t take lessons or anything,” she said. “All through the winter, I was busy with softball, but usually once summer came, I started playing tennis once or twice a week.
“I really loved it. I made a lot of new friends, and it was another sport I was able to play.”
As a freshman, Spinosa played jayvee but dressed and travelled with a Hatter softball squad that captured the PIAA Class AAAA championship. One year later, she was starting for the varsity. The Hatters – after losing the nucleus of their state championship squad – advanced to districts where they lost in the second round.
Last year, the Hatters finished second to Central Bucks South in the tough Continental Conference and then lost a heartbreaker to South in extra innings in the district title game. Unfazed by that setback, the upstart Hatters advanced to the state semifinals where they fell to eventual state champion Mt. Lebanon.
“We really weren’t expected to do that,” Spinosa said. “We knew the year before was a new start, but we knew we had talent.
“I think we surprised a lot of people and showed them what we actually could do. It was really exciting. Hardly anybody ever gets that experience. I’m so glad I got to experience that. I hope we get to do it again this year.”
Spinosa is one of three senior captains of a Hatter squad that figures to once again fight it out with a CB South squad that returns the nucleus of last year’s state runner-up squad.
“Melissa leads by example on the field,” DiFilippo said. “She’s not somebody who’s going to talk a lot and say a lot, but the kids just respect her.”
DiFilippo has coached Spinosa since she joined the Banshees.
“When she first came out, she was very shy,” he said. “When she was young, she was afraid to be on the field. She was afraid she would make a mistake.
“She’s so fast, and sometimes her speed was too fast for her body, but it’s caught up, and she’s a great base runner. She glides.”
Spinosa admits that her perspective has changed as she begins her final high school season.
“It definitely has a different feeling than it ever did because this year is my last year, and I want to make it something to remember,” she said. “It’s so different. I never felt this way as a junior.
“I really like being a captain – there’s more pressure and responsibility, but I like helping other people, so I like helping the younger girls.”
For the past four years, Spinosa has helped with winter softball clinics that are held from December through February for community youngsters, beginning with kindergarteners.
“We teach them the fundamentals of softball – throwing, hitting, catching,” she said. “We play games with them. It’s a lot of fun, and it helps you as a player when you’re teaching the girls – it constantly reminds yourself of the little fundamentals.”
Playing high school softball, according to Spinosa, has been nothing but a positive experience, and that experience has been about a whole lot more than just winning games.
“It’s always a lot of fun playing with the girls,” she said. “I’ve actually played with most of the girls on my high school team since I was little. I’ve been playing with them forever, and I love playing with my teammates.”
Spinosa plans to continue her softball career at West Chester next year.
“At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to play, but as I was getting closer to my senior year – I had been playing softball for so long, and I just didn’t feel I was ready yet to completely stop playing,” she said. “I decided that playing in college was something I really wanted to do.”
She will major in nutrition/dietetics with an interest in working with university athletes and students, and as much as Spinosa loves sports, academics have always come first.
“It’s a big thing in my family,” she said. “It’s part of who I am.”
It’s just one part of a student-athlete who’s found a way to do it all during her four years at Hatboro-Horsham.
