CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville Lady Tide girls softball team suffered its first losing season in 2014 (10-11) after 10 straight years of .500 play or better, including two state titles (2007 & 2009).
Curwensville did, however, make it to the District 9 AA Playoffs, beating Redbank Valley in the quarter-finals, 13-3, before losing to Moniteau in the semi-finals, 4-0.
With 10 returning letter winners, the Lady Tide, under long time head coach Allen Leigey, seem poised to return to pick up their winning ways that the program has been accustomed.
Leigey, entering his 14th year, talked about the why the Lady Tide have a large number of lettermen, “The reason for 10 letter-winners is because some of these young ladies were forced to play last year due to injuries and illness to other teammates. So they gained a tremendous amount of game experience that we are banking on to pay huge dividends this coming year.”
Senior letter winners are Nikki Harker, Megan McCartney, Alaina Stiles and Jordan Round.
Last season Stiles hit for a healthy .435 batting average with four home runs and 25 runs batted in; while McCartney batted .345, hit one home run and drove in 15 teammates.
Harker also had a fine 2014 at the plate, hitting .319 with 14 RBI’S.
Teghan Jacobson, Haley McGarry and Rylee Young are the returning juniors with varsity letters.
Young will take over full time on the mound after a sophomore season were she was 3-1 with a 1.99 ERA. The Lady Tide hurler also hit .277.
McGarry was batting at a .300 clip before a season ending injury that occurred midway through the year.
Pitching is the key, as Leigey commented, “It all starts in the circle; and I lost Tierra Shope through graduation who pitched in 80 games through her four year career. Rylee Young is going to be our number one pitcher and she pitched in four games last year when Tierra was injured. Rylee has worked extremely hard during the summer and fall. We played in a fall league in DuBois and Rylee pitched very well and gained a lot of confidence. Nikki Harker is going to help Rylee in the circle and Nikki also has worked hard at being the back-up pitcher. Rylee is an exceptional athlete and is very coachable. She has great command of her pitches and we are going to rely on her all year long.”
Sophomores that return as lettermen are Hannah Dixon, Kayley Harnett and Camryn Richards.
The infield has a mix of six Lady Tide, with Harker at first base, Harnett and Jacobson sharing second base, Dixon securing the shortstop spot, and Round at third base, with junior Kayli Sedgwick also seeing time at the hot corner.
The pitching and catching duties are fixed as Young will get signals from returning catcher Stiles.
Leigey spoke about position needs and outcomes thus far in the pre-season, “We not only lost our pitcher to graduation we also lost our shortstop, Abby Dugo. So in the off-season we worked really hard to come up with her replacement. We originally had selected Alaina Stiles to take over the shortstop duties. Alaina, finished last season as our catcher. She started out the season as the starting 2nd baseman and was forced behind the plate after Haley McGarry got injured. She was elected to the District IX All-Star team as the 2nd baseman. She was the prime candidate for the starting shortstop position. During fall ball she played shortstop and it was there that we realized how important she was behind the plate catching for Rylee. It was then that we decided to keep Alaina behind the plate so the search for our shortstop continued. We went to the next best athlete on the team -sophomore Hannah Dixon, and that was a good fix because Hannah has grabbed a hold of shortstop and ran with it. She has a great glove, good range and a rifle arm.”
Leigey closed with, “The best information about this team can be summed up by the following quote, “Commitment to the team – there is no such thing as in-between, you are either in or out. This 2015 version of the Lady Tide is all about team. No one is looking at individual stats. All they care about is making the team succeed. I stated this earlier in another interview, that the time I have spent with this team they have true team character and not a lot of characters. Simply meaning, if you are there to rock the boat, they don’t want you on the team. This group works really hard and if they reach their potential could win 15 to 16 games. Their only goal is to make the District playoffs and be hot at the end of the season to make a good run to the state playoffs.”
The Lady Tide opens the regular season on Tuesday, at home, weather permitting, against Brookville.
2015 Roster Seniors: *Nikki Harker, *Megan McCartney, Kamilla McCracken, Dominique Newkirk, Morgan Ross, *Jordan Round, *Alaina Stiles.
Juniors: Madison Bumbarger, Maci Heitsenrether, *Teghan Jacobson, Kristina McCracken, *Haley McGarry, Emily Miller, Kayli Sedgwick, *Rylee Young.
Sophomores: *Hannah Dixon, *Kayley Harnett, *Camryn Richards, Hannah Walnock.
Freshmen: Mackenzie Anderson, Serenity Bloom, Clarissia Cole, Olivia McGarry, Madison Olson, Mikayla Warren. *Returning Letter winner
2015 Schedule March 24-Brookville; 31-at Johnsonburg.
April 1-Elk County Catholic; 6-Harmony; 8-Sheffield (DH), 3 p.m.; 10-at Kane, 4 p.m.; 13-West Branch; 14-DuBois Central Catholic; 16-at Brockway; 20-at Clearfield, 4:30 p.m.; 22-Johnsonburg; 24-Moshannon Valley; 27-at Purchase Line, 4 p.m.; 28-at Elk County Catholic.
May 1-at Glendale, 4:30 p.m.; 4-Purchase Line; 5-Kane; 7-at DuBois Central Catholic; 12-Brockway.
All games will start at 4:15 pm unless otherwise noted.
