by Amanda Smith ’20 (Immaculata House)

It’s an exciting time for Shamrock softball! We are in a year of transition, which began with the Diocesan Tournament. It was action packed! We did well in last year’s tournament  (coming in second to Bishop McDevitt), and were excited to play this season as we have many new freshman who have been a great addition to our Shamrock team. We were ready.

The excitement started a few days before the actual tournament. Due to a miscommunication, a few of our players had scheduling conflicts and we only had 8 players. I knew that everything would work out for the best. At the last moment, I was able to convince Eileen Spila to be our 9th player so we wouldn’t have to forfeit our two games. We arrived on Saturday optimistic after a close game the day before against Delone Catholic. We came out of the gates hot, scoring 4 runs against Lancaster Catholic in the 1st inning with almost everyone getting on base during the game. The final score was 12-10, and we were hoping to ride that wave of success into the next game against York Catholic.

The game against York Catholic was a little more exciting, which I attribute a little bit to becoming tired. I personally was pitching my 3rd full game in less than 24 hours. We stayed strong throughout the game offensively and after 7 innings, we were tied 2-2, which meant that we would be going to extra innings. We struck quickly in the 8th inning, with Elena Siepp singling to left field and ended up at 3rd on the throw. Erin Gnall was able to hit Elena in with a single and that one run was enough to hold onto the lead through the bottom of the inning. The final out was a line-drive to me. Everyone was excited at winning the game, but then became ecstatic at the realization that we had just won the tournament. Trinity Softball was bringing some hardware back to good ole T-High. This led to many photos being taken and some well-earned celebration. Our team knows we are capable of great things and we are working hard to get some more W’s this season.