UNIVERSITY PARK — At the start of the WPIAL softball playoffs, Hempfield battery mates Julia Varhola and Ella Berkebile stumbled upon a good-luck charm.
They came across an old Penguins Stanley Cup playoffs towel and tore it down the middle, each of them tucking a piece of the bright gold cloth into their back pocket.
(Sorry, curious fans, it was not a Terrible Towel.)
“We needed a towel before the Canon-McMillan (playoff opener), and my dad had one in his car,” said Berkebile, a senior catcher. “We each took a piece, and Julia threw a no-hitter that day, so we decided to keep using the towels for the rest of the playoffs. It was like a superstition.”
The ripped rags stayed with them throughout a playoff run that included a record-tying 10th WPIAL championship run, and five PIAA tournament wins capped by more state glory.
(An umpire in Windber didn’t like the color of the towels and made them tuck them away, but they were sure to come out the next game.)
Hempfield wasn’t about to throw in the towel Friday night when it fell behind by three runs, or when Owen J. Roberts rallied to cut the Spartans’ lead to one in a knee-knocking seventh inning of the PIAA 6A championship.
When Owen J. Roberts shaved the Spartans’ lead to 5-4 with one out in the seventh, a conference in the pitching circle served as reassurance that Hempfield still had the upper hand.
Varhola, the hard-throwing senior pitcher who had a remarkable run in her first year as a full-go starter, dried her sweaty palms on her towel — she actually needed a second one late in the game — and finished the job.
“Coach Tina (Madison) told us, you guys belong here. We can’t lose this,” Varhola said. “We went out and showed are true colors.”
Instead, Varhola and Berkebile felt like twirling the tattered towels after Hempfield held on for a 5-4 victory at Penn State’s Beard Field to claim the program’s fifth state title.
Hempfield (25-1), which ended the season with 23 straight wins, now has the record for the most state titles by a WPIAL team and is tied with North Penn for the most PIAA softball championships in 6A (three). The Spartans won three straight titles from 2016-18, the last two coming in 6A.
Hempfield took a few innings to adapt to Owen J. Roberts pitcher Maddie Reed, who baffled the Spartans early. Once they began to hit Reed and plate some runs, they turned the momentum in their favor.
“She was a good pitcher; better than we were expecting,” Hempfield senior shortstop Lauren Howard said. “We weren’t going to lose. Honestly, everything I have done in my career to this point led to this. How many teams get to end the season with a win? We are going down in Hempfield history.”
Howard and Berkebile delivered back-to-back triples to get the scoring started, and junior right fielder Abby Magill, who quietly shined in the state playoffs, slapped a two-run single past first base to give the Spartans a 4-3 lead in the fifth.
Hempfield won six playoff games by a combined score of 49-11.
The Spartans will have to move on from six seniors. The group left a lasting impression.
Varhola finished one of the best single-season pitching efforts in the storied program’s history with a 21-1 record and 188 strikeouts. She is one of only four pitchers in program history to win a WPIAL and PIAA title.
Gold towels or no gold towels, “My chemistry with Ella got so much stronger as the season went on,” Varhola said.
Howard leaves as one of the most decorated hitters the Spartans have seen. She holds records for career hits (140), triples (12) and runs (132), and is tied for the career RBI record (100). Her .466 career batting average and 28 doubles rank third.
Her 38 RBIs this spring tied her single-season mark.
The seniors’ four-year record was 87-9. They won three WPIAL titles and the state crown.
“We wanted to win this for the seniors,” Magill said. “They have shown us what it takes for next year.”
Four of the girls will go on to Division I colleges: Varhola (James Madison), Berkebile (Bucknell), Howard (Virginia) and outfielder Claire Mitchell (Marist).
First baseman Emily Bozek is going to IUP.
Five starters are set to return in freshman standouts Jayelyn and Jocelyn Luft, along with juniors Magill, Joey Cline and Emma Rigby.
Hempfield’s run shows how good a place softball is in for Westmoreland County. Since 2016, county teams have captured nine state softball titles, including Penn-Trafford last year in 5A – Hempfield (2016, ’17, ’18, ’26), Penn-Trafford (2019, ’25), Mt. Pleasant (2017, ’21), and Yough (2016).
Valley won a state championship in 2011.