By Mike Rudin - SPORTS EDITOR The Hofstra Pride softball team is coming off a 2015 season that upset the top-seeded James Madison Dukes to win the Colonial Athletic Association title and appeared in the NCAA tournament.
Hofstra retains a majority of the last year’s team — besides three seniors that graduated — and the Pride was ranked second among teams in the CAA preseason polls with 49 points. JMU was ranked the top dog of the CAA with 56 points.
Considering eight of the nine starting position players will return, the Pride offense and defense remains at relatively the same elite level as last year’s team. “It’s actually a very good transition because our entire defense has returned besides our [2015] starting catcher,” head coach Larissa Anderson said.
Hofstra led the conference in home runs (56) and compiled the second-most RBIs (253). Players such as Caryn Bailey, Chloe Fitzgerald, Kim Smith and many others make the Pride one of the strongest teams in the conference.
But the defending CAA champs will have to face a new challenge in the upcoming season. Since pitchers Morgan Lashley and Taylor Pirone both graduated and are no longer on the team, Hofstra has to shuffle their rotation.
The dynamic duo each recorded 19 wins to compile all of Hofstra’s 38 wins in 2015. The two also logged over 359 innings in the circle, so experience runs thin now in the new pitching staff.
Junior Jessica Peslak as well as freshmen Madison Grimm and Courtney Scarpato will make up the 2016 rotation for the Pride.
“Going into it, we have to get our pitchers [to] grow up pretty quickly,” Anderson said. “I’ve been creating as many game-like situations as I can in practice to put that pressure on them.”
This will be Anderson’s second year at the helm of Hofstra softball and it’ll be one of her toughest scenarios to adapt to as a head coach.
But coach Anderson plans to break down the 2016 season by utilizing all three pitchers on a game-by-game basis to ease the transition.
“The plan is going forward to almost pitch like a baseball staff — starter, reliever [and] closer,” Anderson said. “[That’s] because I don’t have anyone right now that I’d say can go seven innings just because of inexperience.”
Peslak logged six pitching appearances last season and had a 6.18 earned run average. However, she has the most experience on the team as a pitcher and worked alongside Pirone and Lashley last year.
“I learned a lot from Morgan [Lashley] and Taylor [Pirone], they’re great mentors,” Peslak said. “I definitely feel ready, fully confident, this year to take a contributing role.
“We’re a young staff but we work hard and I think we’re going to make a huge impact this year and surprise a lot of people.”
Grimm is one of the two incoming freshmen pitchers for the Pride but she brings an impressive track record. The Maryland Native was the Baltimore Sun’s 2015 All-Metro Softball Player of the Year during her senior year at Manchester Valley High School. Grimm compiled an 18-2 record, 210 strikeouts and a 0.75 ERA – she gave up only 14 earned runs in 2015.
“Transferring from high school to the collegiate level, I focused on the little things and working more as a team,” Grimm said. “You can’t blow by girls in the collegiate level so you really have to focus on your spins.”
She also knows her way around the plate, batting a .463 average, smacked 10 extra base hits and drove in 32 RBIs last year. Her talent led her team to the state softball championships in 2014 and 2015.
Grimm’s rise ball landed her a lot of success throughout high school, but she’s been developing a changeup and curveball during the offseason.
“Grimm has tremendous upside potential,” Anderson said. “She has the ability to throw mid-upper 60’s [mph] and she hasn’t been coached. She learned how to pitch by watching YouTube videos and [practicing with] her dad in the backyard. So you have so much potential that once she learns more how to spin the ball [and] how to locate it. She’s a natural athlete and she’s very easy to coach because she’s self-taught.”
Courtney Scarpato is the third pitcher Anderson plans to use in her rotation for 2016. But she initially had her as a utility infielder and outfielder at first glance. “I did not recruit her as a pitcher,” Anderson said. “She threw in high school [and] won a state championship in New Jersey. I took a look at her and she has tremendous upside potential. She’s so distinctly different from Grimm and Peslak.”
The third senior from the 2015 team that graduated was catcher Erin Trippi. Mainly, her knowledge and experience behind the plate are the main factors Anderson has to replace.
Coach Anderson plans to use Brittany Allocca as the new starting catcher for 2016 and Nikki Michalowski as a utility first baseman.
“Defensively, it’s a great situation for the pitchers to have a veteran defense behind them,” Anderson said. “The timing couldn’t have been better.”
Hofstra’s 2016 season opener will be a doubleheader on Feb. 12 at the FAU Kick-Off Classic. Game one is against University of Tulsa at 3:45 p.m. while game two is against Florida Atlantic University at 8:15 p.m.