Pictured are two of the Springside Chestnut Hill tri-captains for 2019 – Steph DeAngelis (left) and Mo’ne Davis. Their senior classmate Colebe Oliver, the third captain, was away on a school trip …
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Pictured are two of the Springside Chestnut Hill tri-captains for 2019 – Steph DeAngelis (left) and Mo’ne Davis. Their senior classmate Colebe Oliver, the third captain, was away on a school trip abroad during spring break. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher
The softball team at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy is starting off the 2019 season with two titles to defend: the 2018 championships of the Inter-Ac League and the Pa. Independent Schools Athletic Association. Three players graduated off of that highly successful squad – Rachel Kazlauskas, Lucy Lamb and a tireless mainstay in the pitching circle, Kayla McTamney.
The SCH Blue Devils were missing many more players than that as they engaged in their first preseason scrimmages of 2019. Most of the absent athletes headed away on school trips overseas during spring break, including senior power hitter Colebe Oliver, a fifth-year varsity player.
She is a team tri-captain this year along with two other seniors, shortstop Mo’ne Davis and second baseman Steph DeAngelis. Oliver signed with the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in November, and last month, Davis inked an agreement with Hampton University. DeAngelis is still undecided at this point.
For early skirmishes, players missing aside from Oliver were a number of third-year varsity juniors – first baseman Katie Reagan (who has verbally committed to play for Penn), catcher Erin Fennessy, Alysa Akins and Rebecca Arnold, the latter two of whom can both pitch as well as play in the field.
The 11th-grade class also includes returning varsity veteran Maddie Niebish and three players who have moved up from last year’s junior varsity team – Brooke Conlin, Julia Hannigan and Nailah Wheeler. In addition, junior twins Gillian and Hannah Cohen have seen playing time with the varsity in the preseason.
Sophomore Trinity Smith, a tall first baseman who’s filling in for Reagan while she’s away, came up to the varsity team late in the 2018 season. Helping to plug the gaps in the pitching rotation are two freshmen who just entered SCH last fall – Sam Klug and Marissa Wolff. Both are experienced travel team players who can be positioned in the field as well.
They aren’t the youngest players on the roster, though. Like her older sister, Colebe, Courtney Oliver is starting out on her varsity softball career while still an eighth-grader.
In the past, SCH has gone south for training during spring break, but since the members of the team are so widely dispersed at present, the Blue Devils won’t be taking a trip together this time around.
