First Port Chester girls 11U travel softball team branches out into a Fall GHVBL league of their own
July 31, 2024 at 8:35 p.m.
It ain't over until it is over and even then, it isn't over for the first ever 11U Port Chester Youth Baseball League Pirates girls’ travel softball team.
Even though their first season in the Greater Hudson Valley Softball League (GHVSL) ended with a regular summer season finale loss to Yorktown and a playoff loss to Katonah in the past week or so, they have only just begun.
In fact, despite their losing 5-7 record, it looks as though they are here to stay.
Sophia Castro catches the ball in an effort to tag base runner Gigi Giordano out during a practice on Tuesday, July 23 at the Port Chester High School softball field where the newly-formed 11U travel softball team was working on rundown situations and how to be more aggressive base runners.By Joseph DeCarlo
And they will grow from one pioneering team to four teams playing in various age groups going up the ladder from age 8 to 12 by the upcoming Fall GHVBL season, according to the travel team founding mothers.
Windmilling workshops
They plan on holding regular Saturday workshops led by a college Division One pitcher at the high school in a bid to develop a nucleus of windmilling pitchers once the school year begins.
All of which represents a major innovative Lady Rams softball advance for a Port Chester travel team program that didn't exist until a group of local moms and dads took matters into their own hands and built a tight-knit tween sisterhood of competitive players who want to keep improving.
Therein hangs an intriguing tale with affirmative action overtones and more than 50 tween participants.
For years now, Lady Rams head softball coach Jeanine Maiolini, a former ultra-competitive Division One college athletic scholarship infielder at nationally-ranked Hofstra, has been asking the Port Chester powers that be to start a girls’ softball travel team so the high school could compete against the area's better teams with more established off-season programs. But nobody listened.
Coach Pedro Goyburu gives some strategic advice to Mia Carranza during the 11U travel softball team’s July 23 practice.By Joseph DeCarlo
Walking the talk
Until, that is, a former Lady Ram shortstop from back in the day decided to do something about the lack of opportunity for local girls from Port Chester and Rye Brook to play off-season travel team softball.
What she wanted was what Maiolini wanted—a program similar to the Port Chester Youth Baseball League (PCYBL), a training ground where the local girls could learn the game from an early age with the proposed league serving as an age group pipeline to the varsity similar to the one the boys had in baseball.
The program's founding mothers felt that anything the boys could do, the girls could do if not better then just as well, and they certainly deserved the same opportunity as the boys to learn the game from the ground up.
And then ex-Lady Ram Samantha (Sam) Goyburu set out to make that happen with the help of her ex-Ram soccer playing husband Pedro and friends Kelly Castro and John Giordano, a local coach like Pedro except Giordano also happened to be on the Port Chester Youth Baseball League Board.
The founding nucleus
They made up the nucleus of a group of concerned parents who had at least one other thing in common—all had talented softball playing tween daughters who wanted to improve their game. But if they wanted to play fast-paced off-season travel team softball in a competitive league, they had to do it elsewhere. Sam's windmilling pitcher daughter Jocelyn, 11, for example, played with the travel team program in nearby Rye and took it a step further as well by also playing in Elmsford. There were 35 other girls from Port Chester/Rye Brook in the Rye program alone. Sam canvassed the local parents about their interest in starting a Port Chester program and the desire was there. So she pitched the idea to Giordano who, in turn, relayed it to the PCYBL. And PCYBL President Bob Vyskocil said if the guaranteed interest was there and Giordano was willing to handle the administrative details, the program was a go with PCYBL sponsorship. Maiolini was enthusiastic and arranged for the girls to practice and play their home games on the Lady Rams softball field at the high school. Thirteen girls signed up to play for the first Pirates girls softball travel team.
Ready, set, go and grow
The rest, as they say, is history. Because the Goyburus, Castro and Giordano started running two-hour practices. And, after a slow start against Rye, the girls soon began showing they could hold their own and then some against the area's better teams.
Samantha Goyburu had a simple reason for her determination to help get the travel team program off the ground.
The ball finds a home in catcher Amelia Zuccarelli’s glove during the 11U travel softball team’s July 23 practice.By Joseph DeCarlo
As Samantha Wesley, she had played for the then Danny Davis-coached Lady Rams in the early 2000s and had her knee wiped out and her leg broken in two places on a double play pivot as a shortstop which derailed her high school career. And now, as a special education teacher in the Briarcliff School District, she wanted her daughter Jocelyn to have the opportunity to grow as a player that she never had. While girls could play baseball with the boys in the PCYBL, she felt they deserved a softball travel team of their own so they could play off-season in a competitive league like the GHVBL. That would make them better players. And make the Lady Rams varsity a better team in the long run.
That seems to be what is happening at the outset.
The softball sisterhood
"It's important that the Port Chester girls get the same kind of support as the local boys do when it comes to developing their talent," according to Sam Goyburu. "It's true that the girls could play on PCYBL baseball teams and transition over to softball later on, but this gives the girls a chance to play softball on their own team from an early age. And that's what has happened with the travel team—they have developed a real sense of camaraderie and have become a close-knit team that has kept on getting better while becoming a real sisterhood."
Mia Carranza, for instance, pitched a solid game in the playoff loss to Katonah while Adriana Pace got two hits (including a triple) and Jocelyn Goyburu went three for three. Jocelyn struck out 10 batters in the season-ending loss to Yorktown while Pace again had a multi-hit game. Nobody on the team will ever forget how they rallied to come from behind to beat White Plains 8-5 with Pace homering with the bases loaded and Arianna Romero hitting an inside-the-park home run to upset a team ironically coached by former Lady Ram softball greats Brooklyn and Madison Ostrowski, now both playing college athletic scholarship softball at Villanova.
As the initial summer travel season progressed, each player contributed to a roster that was strong up and down the line with ever-improving players such as Amelia Zuccarelli, Sophia Castro, Juliana Tejeda, Arianna Romero, Aria Cavallino, Jillian Jimenez, Ava Oshiro, Gigi Giordano and Dylan Stroud.
Adriana Pace gets ready to throw the ball to a teammate during the 11U travel softball team’s July 23 practice.By Joseph DeCarlo
"It's amazing to finally have a girls’ travel softball team in our town," said Maiolini, the veteran Lady Rams coach. "I had the opportunity to work with some of the young athletes at my summer camp at the high school and they are a talented group. Brooklyn Ostrowski, one of our all-time Lady Rams softball greats, was a counselor at the camp and she feels the same way. The girls are having a blast playing and competing as a team. And they are only going to keep getting better. And will be a big help in making the high school varsity better in the future."
A league of their own
Now that the summer GHVBL season has ended, the local travel team is branching out into what is developing into a budding PCYBL travel softball team league of their own. Sam Goyburu has come up with 50 players and their families willing to commit to an upcoming Fall GHVBL season that will include at least four local age group teams in the 8, 10, 12 and 14U categories. And they aren't going to stop there. Because they have lined up a Division One windmilling pitcher in Angela Uribe of Monroe College to work with potential age group windmillers in two-hour Saturday sessions at the high school once the school year begins, building on a developmental workshop program idea started by Maiolini and her then assistant coach DeAnne Ostrowski, a former windmilling pitcher at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
So it looks as though the Port Chester girls travel softball program may finally be here to stay with the PCYBL helping the program walk the walk after years of Maiolini talking the talk and asking the ask without anyone seeming to listen until the founding mothers and fathers did something about it.
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