Banner Year for Brooklyn Softball
by Anthony Macapugay
The Brooklyn softball team became the team with the most wins in Brooklyn athletics history after posting a 26-10 record this spring.
Highlighted by a 2-1, nine-inning victory over rival St. Elizabeth in the Hudson Valley Women’s Athletic Conference (HVWAC) title game, SJC’s season was capped with a trip to the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) National Softball Tournament for the third time.
In the HVWAC title game, freshman Lisa Scheer battled in a pitcher’s duel that went scoreless through the first seven innings. Scheer had five strikeouts and allowed three hits during that time.
With the tiebreaker rule, which places a runner on second base to start the inning, into effect in the eighth, St. Elizabeth’s broke the scoreless tie on an error.
But SJC answered in the bottom of the inning on Theresa Mendez’s sacrifice fly to knot the score at 1. Scheer, who was named tournament MVP, then worked out of trouble by forcing two straight pop-fly outs with runners on second and third. And in dramatic fashion, the rookie blasted a double to left field, scoring Jackie Marinello for the walk-off win.
The win propelled the Lady Bears into the USCAA tournament with their highest seed in three trips (No. 5). Once there, they endured a pair of 5-2 losses to No. 4 Southern Virginia and No. 8 Penn State Beaver.
Much of the team’s success can be attributed to the play of Scheer and Alyson Chiaramonte, who shared pitching duties. Each won 13 games and the duo was also first and second on the team in hitting.
Chiaramonte also pitched the first perfect game in school history against Sarah Lawrence and she had five shutouts on the season. Scheer posted a 4-0 record in games decided by one run and she tallied three shutouts.
Both Scheer and Chiaramonte were named Association of Division III (AD3I) first-team All-Independent, USCAA first-team All-American and to the HVWAC All-Conference team.