There were plenty of moments in the opening half of the WPIAL softball season where things didn’t look as they should for the North Hills softball team.
A perennial contender, the Indians started the season 1-4 and sat under .500 following a 17-2 blowout loss to section foe Plum on April 20.
But, given a second chance against some of the teams that beat them the first time around, North Hills proved that, as the saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold.
“It’s always great when you see a team a second time and you know that you’ve improved, that you’ve gotten better,” said Indians coach Libby Gasior, whose team rallied to go 9-7 in the regular season. “It’s one of those silent confident things where you see the effort every day and know you’re getting better and then you get the chance to prove it because you get the team again.”
That said, with only one win in their first five games, including a walk-off loss at New Castle and a loss at home to rival Fox Chapel, there was a need for maturity and poise within the entire program.
“You really find out what teammates are made of, what families are made of, what coaches are made of,” said Gasior. “It’s easy to bail at 1-4. Whatever the expectation is, you still have to play the games and win the games. It really jelled us in a way that was productive. There wasn’t finger pointing; there wasn’t a blame game. It was just like, ‘OK, let’s get better.’”
Gasior felt as if the Indians, who won four straight after the 1-4 start and then hit another four-game winning streak toward the end of the season, showed signs of being a team that was perhaps better than the final scores indicated.
“Even when we were losing, we were still playing decently,” she said. “We just weren’t getting the results. Sometimes, when you establish a winning mentality, you fall into that mindset that you can control it. You really can’t.
“We really didn’t have time to feel bad for ourselves. There was no time.”
The experience of being on the wrong side of the results built a hunger in North Hills.
The Indians avenged a 3-1 loss to Fox Chapel with a 4-1 win in the rematch, a win that felt a little extra special following a story that was published about the Foxes being promised a steak dinner if they claimed the rivalry game.
North Hills beat up on New Castle, 12-5, for more payback from the early season loss. The Indians scored perhaps their most impressive win in a 7-6 walk-off win over Plum, atoning for the 15-run loss just four days earlier.
While the final scores have fluctuated a bit, one player’s offense hasn’t.
“The constant has been Abby Sutton’s hitting,” said Gasior of the senior, who also pitches. “She’s been productive all year. Her pitching, as she’s done each year, in the second half she’s been honing things and is more confident with each outing. She’s continuously improved.”
Natalie Anzaldi hit around .400 in the regular season and provided a steady glove in the field at third base. Audrianna Baumgardner emerged down the stretch, including the walk-off homer in the win over Plum.
The Indians did enough in the back half to once again lock up a spot in the WPIAL postseason, where they earned the 11-seed in the Class 5A playoffs.
And the hot play continued into the playoffs, with North Hills scoring a 5-1 upset win over No. 6 Montour in the first round May 12.
From the outside, securing a playoff win may have seemed like a bit of a pipe dream following the rocky start to the year. But Gasior has seen her team grow in the most important area of the game: confidence.
“In terms of confidence, we really needed a break,” she said. “We felt like if it was 50-50, we weren’t going to get it. We were in that kind of slump. When things started slowly turning and we started getting those little things, you could see the confidence build. We didn’t hit a panic button and came through the other side.”