Senior Spotlight: Daniel Boone’s McCrone followed mother onto softball field and never left

It figured Caitlin McCrone would be very much at home on the softball field.

She followed her mother, Dot McCrone, on her coaching activities back when she was learning to walk. The younger McCrone hasn’t stopped moving on the diamond since then, and she plans to continue doing so after graduating from Daniel Boone this spring.

Cait will be heading to Alvernia University in the fall to pursue studies in occupational therapy. She will also resume her sport of choice, returning from down time forced by recent surgery that interrupted a stellar scholastic career.

“I was always around it,” Cait recalled. “Mom coached older girls, and I wanted to be like that. I fell in love with it.”

“She was always around a softball field,” Dot added. “She took her first steps there. It was a fun experience.”

Cait got her start in Little League play in Florida at age seven. The family moved to the area after that, and she got doubly involved in the sport, playing in school and travel ball.

Dot impacted her daughter’s playing experience around her own coaching activities. She was head coach at Pottstown four seasons (2013-16), then took over the Colonial Middle School (Plymouth-Whitemarsh) program.

“She started playing everything,” Dot McCrone recalled. “She pitched when she was eight, played a little first and second base.”

“My pitching coach saw I had a lot of drive,” Cait added. “I worked hard to get better.”

Mom recalled how Cait developed an inner drive for excellence along the way.

“She would say she was terrible in a game where she did well,” Dot said. “She was always hard on herself.”

Cait’s travel-ball experience featured stints with the Banshees, a 12U level team, and the Patriots.

She had one notable experience with the Banshees in a state-championship tournament. Cait was involved in successive no-hitters, pitching in the semifinal game before teaming up with another girl in the title game.

“I think she pitched at least four games that weekend,” Dot noted.

Though the Banshees gave McCrone considerable exposure to winning games and tournaments, she saw the Patriots, for whom she played during her freshman and sophomore years in school, being beneficial in a different way.

“That had the most impact,” she recalled. “We didn’t win as much, but I learned more.”

Throwing with a windmill delivery, McCrone has developed an extensive repertoire of pitches except for a riseball. It’s a pitch the Alvernia coaching staff wants her to develop.

“It’s a really hard pitch,” she noted, “but really hard to hit.”

Injuries have followed Cait McCrone through her high-school time. There was a stress fracture in her ankle her sophomore year, then a torn meniscus as a junior.

Most recently, she underwent Tommy John surgery on her right elbow. That would have kept her out of action this spring, had there been a high-school softball season.

“I can’t do much right now. No softball until August,” she said. “I’ve been out there watching.”

McCrone, dealing with the injury issues, still accrued a slew of accolades playing for Boone.

A two-time Blazer captain, she was named to the Berks County All-Division first team as a pitcher and the Mercury All-Area second team as a designated hitter/designated player in 2018. She was also feted on the PIAA Class 5A first team as a DH/DP while helping Boone win the 2018 Berks County championship.

In 2019, Cait was a PIAA-5A second team pitcher and received Honorable Mention from The Mercury in the same capacity.

Boone was coming off a 9-1 run in Berks play in 2018 (18-6 overall) and returning a roster that had many of the same players.

“I think we would have been good,” she said. “We would have fought until there was no fight left. I was really excited. I would have been the main pitcher.

Though sidelined, she felt just as keenly the loss of the 2020 softball season.

“I was just as upset,” she said. “It hurt just as much.”

McCrone goes into her collegiate studies at Alvernia with a solid background of personal experience. She noted “My whole high-school career, I worked in the Life Skills room.”

In preparation for Alvernia’s fall-ball program — practice and a number of games — she’s been primarily involved in running.

“I do that a lot. I’m not allowed to do softball,” she noted.