AMHERST – For the first time in a long time, everything’s looking up for the Amherst softball team.
The Hurricanes have started their 2022 season on a three-game winning streak, their latest victory an 11-2 thumping of Pathfinder on Tuesday for their first win at home of the spring.
Amherst won just a single game last year on the road, and had gone through several coaches after the retirement of long-established softball coach Kacey Schmitt. They seem to have found someone at last who can steer the program back toward its winning ways – former Amherst star Emma Mendoker, now in her second year as head coach of the ‘Canes.
“We have more people now and more energy. People are more excited about coming than years in the past,” Amherst junior Maria Konieczny said. “And having the same coach multiple seasons in a row hasn’t always happened to us. So I think that the consistency helps.”
Konieczny is one of four returning players on the roster, along with Riana Shaw, Kelvy Diaz-Alicia and Frannie White. Everyone else is new to the squad, and some, like senior Madalyn Remensnyder, are brand new to the sport. Amherst doesn’t have a dedicated feeder program to pull players from, so Mendoker has had to go back to the fundamentals when it comes to coaching.
“We had to work from the ground up and I think the girls are just doing great. They’re really progressing, and a lot of these girls never played softball before,” Mendoker said. “They have a great spirit and they want to learn, and they’re really progressing and learning the game pretty fast.”
That learning curve is helped by players like Konieczny, who is a jack of all trades on the field. She learned how to pitch last season to fill an open spot in the circle, and she’s ultimately played wherever she’s been needed, though her natural role is at catcher. Luckily, she’s back behind the plate this season thanks to the arrival of pitcher Sofia Holden and her sister, Nina, who have given the Hurricanes some raw skill and depth that has bolstered the varsity squad. In their most recent game against Pathfinder on Tuesday, Sofia rattled off a jaw-dropping 16 strikeouts.
“It’s really nice not having to pitch because catching is my primary position. [Holden is] really good and she’s really sweet and supportive,” Konieczny said. “She’s new to Amherst schools, but she fits in really well, and Nina does too.”
With the leadership coming from veterans like Konieczny and Shaw, along with the mound work from Sofia Holden, the ‘Canes will undoubtedly be a tough team for opposing schools to face at the plate this spring. Even knowing the improvements her team has made, it was still nerve-wracking for Mendoker when it came time to play their season opener against Westfield Tech last week.
“As a player, you know that things can happen… even when you’re ahead, they can come back any time. So for the first game I just was holding my breath the whole game until the end and I was just very proud of them,” Mendoker said. “I was very proud of seeing Sofia for the first time because during practice, I actually never really saw her pitch very much because I’m focused on other things, but when I saw her perform, she rocked it.”
Shorter term, the Hurricanes are focused on the ‘control-ables’ in their play, according to Konieczny. In the long term, Mendoker has her eyes fixed on trying to get more young girls in the community involved with softball at a younger age.
“I think down the road it would be great to have youth programs at Amherst, but I think to begin we need to do camps,” Mendoker said. “I would love to do a camp after the end of the season.”
Amherst looks to improve to 4-0 on the season Thursday when it travels to Springfield to play Renaissance School.