A lopsided loss to Holy Child proved to be quite motivational for Poly Prep ace Ciara Schirripa and her team before an important league contest against Riverdale.
Holy Child hit Schirripa, the daughter of former Sopranos star Steve Schirripa, hard. She spoke with Blue Devils softball coach Mildred Piscopo and catcher Nova Stoller about what she could do better to avoid a second-straight defeat.
Schirripa watched Holy Child’s pitcher control the Blue Devils’ lineup by changing speeds regularly and moving the ball around the strike zone more than she had been doing. The senior decided to give it try versus the Falcons.
“I realized I have to do that more,” Schirripa said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, the placement of the ball, to speed it up, and then on 0–2 slow it down a little bit.”
The strategy worked to perfection, and Riverdale batters never looked comfortable at the plate in the Blue Devils 3–1 Ivy League victory in Bay Ridge last Saturday. Schirripa allowed just three hits and struck out six. The Falcons’ lone run came in the seventh inning on consecutive hits by No. 3 hitter Annie Reiner and clean up batter Jenny Kronish.
“It really, really helped me,” Schirripa said.
Poly took advantage of key Riverdale errors and executed its small-ball game to perfection. Amanda Grossman led off the bottom of the fourth with an infield single against Riverdale ace Madison Kahn. Morgan O’Mara moved her to third with a single. Grossman later scored to make it 1–0 when Kahn dropped a popup.
Sara Healy’s infield single in drove Stoller, who reached on an error, in the bottom of the sixth. A sac fly from Carly Corr made it 3–0 by plated Schirripa, who reached on a wild pitch after striking out. Poly took the extra base all game and took advantage of a choppy infield on bunts to get its offense going.
Piscopo said small ball isn’t something her team always uses, but employs it went needed. The strategy worked on this afternoon.
“The last couple of games, we haven’t been as successful as we need to be,” she said. “When you are facing good pitching and you’re struggling to get some hits, you want to create situations where you get base runners, and we were able to.”
The victory is Poly’s second over Riverdale this season, and keeps them on pace with Fieldston, which is also undefeated in league play so far. They first take the field against each other on May 1 at Poly.
Piscopo was pleased to see how her young team responded to losing to Holy Child. Poly starts three freshmen and two sophomores and is continuing to improve.
“We were very anxious about this game.” Grossman said. “We have come along way since the beginning of the season. We knew how important this game was.”
