Lady Rams softball team on a rebuilding kick
April 3, 2024 at 10:50 p.m.
It was an all too familiar scene when Tuesday's April showers washed away the scheduled Apr. 2 Lady Rams softball game away against Mamaroneck. It was a case of déjà vu all over again, almost as though veteran head coach Jeanine Maiolini was starting to rebuild a losing culture virtually from scratch once more, albeit a decade later.
It was 2013 when Maiolini started her first rebuild hereabouts. And she did it as a first-year coach fresh out of nationally-ranked Hofstra where she had been an athletic scholarship infielder from Carmel on her way to earning a degree in physical education.
So Maiolini and her new team, the Lady Rams, didn't quite know what to expect when she showed up at a wet, muddy Middle School field for the losing team's first day of practice.
Fun in muddy fundamentals
But Maiolini quickly won her team over by putting the fun in fundamentals.
Because from the get-go, she had the Lady Rams slipping and sliding in the mud, getting down and dirty hitting, fielding and throwing like mudders, having a fun experience that was as much played for laughs as it was for practice designed to make the Lady Rams better.
And they did get better.
And Maiolini was named League Coach of the Year.
Since then she has had several All-Time Port Chester softball greats, from pitcher/slugger Cassie Lagana who went on to greatness at CCNY to the Ostrowski sisters, Brooklyn and Madison, currently starring at Villanova University on athletic scholarships, and nationally-ranked Long Island Lutheran University point guard Kayleigh Heckel, a McDonald's All-American who has committed to play basketball for the University of Southern California.
The missing windmiller
And now Maiolini is looking for her latest turnaround players because her team has lost three of its first four games and DeAnne Ostrowski, the matriarch of the Ostrowski athletic clan, a former windmilling pitcher at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and a Con Ed engineer, is no longer around as an assistant Lady Rams coach trying to establish a Port Chester windmilling pitching tradition from the Middle School on up.
That hasn't happened. Nor has a travel team ever been started to keep the Lady Rams playing softball year-round. So the new euphemistically named spring season has been a rough slog so far for Maiolini despite an impressive 40 student athletes trying out for the team. While that number included a solid group of hitters and fielders, there were precious few pitchers with any kind of real windmilling experience.
And without a high caliber of fast pitching experience, a team can only go so far in ultra-competitive Section 1 without the advanced windmilling arms.
Solid roster shows promise
A quartet of Lady Rams has stepped up to help handle the pitching to date with promising efforts from Melina Morban, Kathleen Scarola, Fiona Lovallo and Yvonne Santiago. Tamara Correia, Tabby Sanchez, Heidi Gonzalez and Fatima Coyt have swung the big bats as has Morban, Santiago and Lovallo. And lead-off hitter and shortstop Karah Provenzano has flashed the good glove along with a knack for getting on base. So the team has promise and doesn't quit. And there is hope for a turnaround.
But it may take a romp in the mud and a chance to play slipping and sliding mudders in practice to lift the team's spirit. The mud should at least be easy to come by given the heavy rains of late. But winning is a different story because the schedule maker hasn't done the Lady Rams any favors. The next few games won't be easy with New Rochelle on tap for Thursday (4/4) at home at 4:30 p.m., crosstown rival Blind Brook at home Saturday (4/6) at 11 a.m. and Suffern away Monday (4/8) at 4:45 p.m. in Rockland County. So the Lady Rams better bring their A game and their best arms if they want to get going on that turnaround. Or else there will be a lot more Ls than Ws in what could be a rebuilding year of tilting at windmills.
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