Bellefonte softball grabs Opening Day victory with 11-1 victory over Penns Valley
Bellefonte and Penns Valley each had their first few games rained out and were raring to go on Monday under cloudy skies.
The Lady Raiders won 11-1 in a cold, windy five-inning affair at O’Leary Field. Just as the wind blew, Bellefonte starting pitcher Josselyn Nau blew past the Lady Rams’ batters. She pitched five innings, striking out six batters, allowing just one run on two hits. Nau had a no-hitter through three innings, prior to Penns Valley’s Scotty Dinges reaching base on a single into center field.
It was just the start that the junior pitcher looked for on opening day from her team.
“It felt really nice, but I couldn’t do it without my team,” Nau said. “I’m really proud of them. I think we did really well for our first game of the year. I can just trust them no matter what. They put a lot of work into it and they know what they’re doing.”
Nau’s catcher Grace Novitsky has put in a great deal of work to replace last year’s catcher, Maddie Tice. The sophomore backstop got off to a hot start in her first year as the starter, going 2-for-2 from the plate with a double, a single, a walk and batted in one run in the third inning.
Novitsky also called a strong game for Nau. The sophomore sat behind the plate like a director behind the camera, quietly pointing out which moves her actresses would make. In Novitsky’s case, her star was Nau — who now sits in as the No. 1 starter after Lexi Rogers went on to James Madison.
The goal isn’t to replace Tice and Rogers, but to leave their own mark following the star-studded combo’s departure.
“I would watch Maddie a lot and I think I learned a lot from her,” Novitsky said. “I think we have to fill in their roles, but we need to find ourselves as players too because I’m not Maddie Tice and she’s (Nau) not Lexi Rogers. That doesn’t mean we can’t win. So, we have to show everybody that even though they’re gone, we still have the capability to win and beat our rivals.”
Bellefonte head coach Travis Rogers leads a youthful team this year, following the loss of his seven seniors. The key to last year’s 20-3 record was the cohesiveness of the team and their ability to band together for the ultimate cause of winning a title.
He sees a great deal of similarities between this team and the ones that he’s coached in the past, citing their resilience and ability to stay focused on competing as hard as possible.
“Something that we’ve been talking about for a long time is, ‘Who are we,’” Rogers asked his team prior to the season. “‘What’s our identity? How are we going to play? How are we going to win?’ If that’s (the win) is a sign of things to come, then we’re happy with that. We didn’t expect to come out and drop 11 and just get at it, but today we played really well. We hit the balls really hard. Taylor Bumgardner (Penns Valley pitcher) is going to be very good by the time it’s all said and done. I’m excited to watch her play as she gets older.”
Bellefonte knocked in their 11 runs on 14 hits. The Lady Raiders scored in the first inning with Sienna Barnhart doubling in Madison Melius for a 1-0 lead. Maria Cotter doubled to plate Novitsky in the second inning.
The Lady Raiders went on a tear in the third inning, scoring seven runs on just five hits. Penns Valley’s lone score came in the fourth inning with an Avelyn Van Heyst RBI to score Dinges to trail 9-1. Bellefonte plated two more runs off the bats of Ragan Manning and Melius to lead 11-1.
Penns Valley head coach Terry Bumgardner knows that his team has work to do. He looks forward to putting a plan in place to getting his youthful team to compete for a district title in 2022.
“We have a positive group,” Terry Bumgardner said. “During the last month, we’ve come together pretty well. I don’t think this score is indicative of where this team is going to be. So, it’s very encouraging of where we’re at and today’s just one game. The girls have to look past that.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2022 at 8:56 PM.
