Pennridge Lady Rams Softball

Emily Hegen, Journalism Student

The Pennridge Lady Rams softball team just played against Souderton Area High School on Thursday, April 11, 2019. The girls won the game after the seventh inning of play 6-3. Makenna Paterson had a great game of pitching with four strikeouts and giving up three runs in six hits. The team together had a 0.296 average for hits per at-bat on the day with a home run, seven singles and three walks.

We started off the game with a leadoff walk by Kiley Watson, the shortstop. Watson stole second which lead her to score the first point of the game. The Indians fought back but fell short for the first inning until the leadoff hitter for Souderton hit a double to left center field which scored two runs. But shortly after Pennridge had the clutch hit of the game thanks to Morgan Henry, the first baseman, with a two-run home run to put the Rams up 3-2 in the top of the third. Paterson then kept up the great work and had three shut down innings that included four strikeouts. The two-run home run by Henry was not enough for Pennridge. Paterson scored the fourth run of the game in the top of the fourth and the sixth. For the final run of the game Madi Silber, catcher started off the seventh inning with a walk. She ended up stealing second base on a passed ball that was not blocked by the catcher for Souderton. Henry had then moved Silber over to third base with a grounder to the right side of the diamond to put her only 60 feet away from home plate. Silber was knocked in on a sacrifice fly ball by myself, designated hitter for Mary-Kate Levush who plays center field. Souderton got their final run in the bottom of the seventh to finalize the score of 6-3, Pennridge Rams.

The varsity team wouldn’t have been able to do this without all the hard work put in by the coaching staff of Coach Wendy Iadonisi and Coach Steve Ryan. Iadonisi was an assistant coach for Hatboro-Horsham High School for 12 years before she took her first job as a varsity coach as well as her first year at Pennridge. Iadonisi has been playing softball from the time she was 5 years old until last year when she turned 42 doing the slow pitch. She played college softball as well at Rider University. When you ask Iadonisi what her favorite part of coaching she said, “teaching the girls the game of softball and watching them enjoy it as much as I have” but her favorite part of playing the game is calling the pitches because it makes her feel apart of the game that she loves so much.

Iadonisi pushes us the are highest so we are able to follow our dreams of possibly playing in college like she was able to or to even have fun. Even though this is her first year she has been able to help the seniors work for colleges like Watson who is going to West Chester, Henry who is going to Susquehanna, Paterson who is going to Holy Family, and me who is going to East Stroudsburg to play college softball. She also works hard for the girls who are not going to play like Kionna Nestor after we had asked her if she was planning on playing in college or not as well as Levesh and Estep who are going to college to play soccer.

After asking Nestor what game she is looking forward to she said: “definitely North Penn since they are one of the hardest teams in our league and Quakertown for our second game.” If you were to ask anyone else on the team they would agree on the North Penn game as well, which the team will be playing on April 17, 2019, at North Penn High School at 3:30.

We would love it if the student body would come out and support the team for any of our upcoming games that our home since they are local. Just listen to the Daily Ramble and they will always be held at Druckenmiller Park in Sellersville and games will either be at 6:30 or 3:30 during the week.