A Star is Torn: Split ties lead to regrettable end for Spring-Ford softball
ALLENTOWN >> Regrettably, Tim Hughes had been here before.
It was 2001 and his Spring-Ford softball team was embarking on its inaugural run in the PIAA Championships as District 1’s third-place finisher.
But the Rams didn’t do it at full strength: The team’s top two pitchers were serving one-game suspensions for violating team policy by pitching for their club team just days before the first-round game on Monday, June 4. The result was a 10-0, five-inning defeat to District 3 champion Chambersburg, a rough ending to an otherwise monumental season in program history.
The old adage about history repeating itself made an untimely resurrection in the last three days.
Spring-Ford made its second appearance ever in the PIAA semifinals Tuesday against Hazleton, but did so without the Pa. Gatorade Player of the Year. Sophomore pitcher Bri Peck did not play while serving a one-game suspension after violating that same team policy by pitching for her club team last weekend.
“She broke a team policy and (the suspension) would have happened whether it was the first week of the season or the last week of the season,” Hughes said Monday ahead of the Rams’ state semifinal. “Everybody understands and she knows that she broke the policy.”
Unlike 18 years prior, the Rams were entirely competitive with District 2 champion Hazleton, even bringing the tying run to the plate in the seventh inning. But a 4-1 season-ending defeat carried an embattled atmosphere with proponents and adversaries of the ruling on both sides.
The Spring-Ford program’s requirements were outlined entering the weekend where Peck’s PA Strikers 16U National team was competing in a regional qualifier in Newtown, Bucks County. Player restrictions are not uncommon during the high school postseason, with most handled on a case-by-case or team-by-team understanding. Spring-Ford chose to allow Peck to play shortstop and be in the lineup but asked that she not pitch for fear of injury or overexertion with such an opportunity like a state semifinal just days later.
During the team’s second game Saturday, against Myers Newtown Rock U16 National, Peck was asked to pitch – and did.
PA Strikers coach Camille Hayes didn’t intend for Peck to pitch Saturday. But with college coaches flocking at the PGF (Premier Girls Fastpitch) qualifying tournament, and indicating their desire to see the Pa. Player of the Year pitch, Hayes also found herself in a conflict. A club coach’s chief pursuit is providing scholarship opportunities to his or her players, and Hayes opened up Pandora’s box, not grasping that this wasn’t going to be chalked up as a special circumstance.
The four innings of one-hit ball Peck threw was part of PA Strikers’ 7-3 win, en route to a 3-0 weekend that had more than a handful of college coaches calling about her on Monday.
But those calls felt hollow a day later. Had she been able to look into the future, decisions probably would have been different.
“I’m sick over this. I wish I could go back in time,” Hayes said after Tuesday’s game.
“Watching Bri not play and know how important she was to that team, I’m sick to my stomach.
“When I see her in the middle of something she shouldn’t be, it breaks my heart.”
All season, Peck proved herself to be a team player in her play, her words and stature as a beloved teammate. That didn’t change over the weekend or Tuesday.
Somewhere in the last three days a lot of lines got blurred, except for Hughes’ lines.
“It’s probably regrettable by her and I guarantee if she could do it again she wouldn’t. But she’s a sophomore and got thrown in the mix here and people to say, ‘You should probably think about this’ weren’t there or didn’t say it when they should have,” Hughes said. “Nobody is saying Bri Peck is terrible, it was just a split-second decision that was made and it is what it is. She’s a great kid and she’s fantastic but it’s not about her.”
The tenuous relationship between high school and club sports are often at a simmer: High school sports are seen as more team-oriented with classmates working toward a common goal, while club, in the mind of detractors, is an individualistic pursuit that isn’t guided by the same principles as scholastic competition. The converse would say that high school play is just for fun while club play presents the opportunity for greater success and scholarships.
Broken down simply: Rules are rules and they have consequences when they’re broken, even when it means sitting the Pa. player of the year for a state semifinal.
The action would be unthinkable to many, but what’s more unthinkable to Hughes, in his 23rd season as Rams’ head coach, is to compromise his convictions.
“It’s really nothing major (of an infraction), but I’m not the kind of coach that’s going to say wins come before principles,” Hughes said. “Or that will come back and bite me in the ass later on and I don’t want that to happen. I’d rather die with principle than win while having to look over my shoulder.
“I lost a lot of sleep over this, but to me, she will learn from this and everybody will learn from this as has been done in the past.”
Even if you want to question Hughes’ sanity, it’s hard to question his integrity. On the biggest stage in program history, he put his word before winning.
“Regardless of the situation we’re in, (to play her) would be showing favoritism for talent and I’m not doing that,” Hughes said. “I never have and never will.”
One can’t help but wonder if the whole – the entire Spring-Ford roster and its supporters – were the ones feeling the brunt of the punishment. But those nuanced parts of the argument are only visible if the lens isn’t black and white.
Rules aren’t made to be broken, but when only seeing black and white, the gray areas can be missed.
There was angst over the decision in 2001. There will be angst over the decision in 2019.
It’s always accepted that high school sports are about the life lessons greater than wins and losses.
In time, maybe.
But right now, there’s just a lot of people feeling wrong about trying to do what they thought was right.
