Radnor’s softball season comes to a close

When the Radnor High School softball team walked off the field following its loss to Villa Maria in the quarterfinals of the PIAA District One Class AAA tournament May 25, they were greeted by applause from the Radnor faithful congratulating them on a successful campaign.

While the season did not end the way Radnor would have hoped, the Raiders had the defending district champions on the ropes for the first four innings before the host Hurricanes pulled away for the win to advance to the district semi-finals May 31.

“I am incredibly proud of this group,” said Radnor coach John Schaefer. “They worked hard all year. We did struggle to find that consistency teams sometimes find at some point during the season but we did have some great wins and we finally put it all together against Chichester (May 23) in the first round of the district tournament. I was glad to see the team reap the benefits and see the result of their hard work.”

Senior co-captain Megan McGrath added, “We came into the year know we were going to have work hard. After the first couple of games we had trouble finding a way to meld together but in the end we all came together and this run just shows we can work hard and do what we can do to be our best and I think we did a great job this season getting to the point where we did so great against Chichester and did great against Villa also.”

Despite the early season struggles, the senior co-captains – McGrath and Amanda Davis and fellow senior Lila Howard – made sure the team stayed positive and continued to support each other knowing from prior experience that their season could turn around and playoffs and that is exactly what happened.

On April 14, junior pitcher Brooke Nicander outdueled Ridley’s Leigh Ann Jenkins and on April 25, the Raiders outlasted Conestoga to pick up another key regular season win

Whether it was the defense doing its job or the offense needing to come alive to outslug its opponent on the way to victory, the key has been teamwork and each player accepting their respective role and doing whatever was needed for team success.

Accompanying the team first mentality was also the ability to focus forward and not worry about the past. That philosophy was displayed in the fourth inning against Villa Maria when sophomore third baseman Cate Remphrey had to a rough start to the inning committing two errors before bouncing back to complete an unassisted double play and then getting credited with put out on a grounder to shortstop that forced a runner at third. Following in the team first philosophy, Rumphrey stepped in at third after playing most of the season behind the plate because regular third baseman Amanda Davis had to pitch with Nicander unavailable to pitch.

“The key is to focus one pitch at a time and focus on the next pitch and not the play that just happened,” Davis said. “As long as we do that and support each other we are capable of doing anything.”

Following a roller coaster like regular season, the seniors leadership showed as the juniors took the torch in their win over Chichester in the opening round of the district playoffs behind the arm of Nicander and the bats of Sydney Aljian (two RBI hits), Sarah Rosenblum (four hits, scored two runs), Grace Moore (two hits, three RBI’s) and Kim Mullarkey (two RBI hits) to continue the success Radnor softball has experienced. With the win, Nicander joined former pitching standout Izzy Schaefer to earn three district playoff wins.

“The seniors have definitely meant a lot to our success,” said Nicander. “They taught us to put our best foot forward and have motivated us to be better and that is the message we want carry forward.”

“We are certainly looking forward to next year,” Schaefer said. “The seniors meant a lot to this program and we will certainly miss them but our juniors had a great game against Chichester and I believe that will give them confidence heading into next year.”