Penn State New Kensington softball team eager for postseason
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The Penn State New Kensington softball team needed a sweep of Penn State Fayette in its conference finale Sunday to secure its place in the Penn State University Athletic Conference playoffs.
The Lions did just that as they scored 9-0 and 12-1 victories to finish the regular season 12-12 overall and 11-11 in league play.
Now, PSNK turns its attention to a team — Penn State Beaver — that it is very familiar with from six games in the conference regular season.
“I think the team is in a good place,” PSNK coach Mike Marsilli said. “Mentally, we are up as we ended on a good note with two good wins. Physically, we’re well rested, having this whole week to practice and prepare. I think we are confident going into Saturday’s game. We know we can beat them. We did it twice during the regular season. I think we should’ve beaten them a third time, but it just didn’t work out in our favor. I think we are evenly matched.”
Saturday’s first-round game at PSU Beaver is set for 2 p.m.
There are East and West Divisions in the playoff tournament, and the top three teams in each division qualified.
The winner of Saturday’s West Division game will advance to the final four May 9-10 with West No. 1 seed Penn State Mont Alto (19-7, 17-5). From there, it is double elimination against the East teams to decide the champion.
“Everyone is super excited. It has been a while since this team has made it to playoffs,” said Fox Chapel graduate and PSNK senior pitcher/second baseman Calle Zmenkowski, who is batting .298 with eight doubles, two triples, nine RBIs and a team-best 22 runs scored. “We want to get back on the field so we can beat Beaver and move on.”
PSNK and PSU Beaver played as recently as last Saturday, with Beaver taking both games of a doubleheader, 9-7 and 6-3.
PSNK scored an emotional 6-5 win in nine innings in the second game of a doubleheader between the teams April 19.
Marsilli said the team — three seniors, two sophomores and six freshmen — is grateful for the playoff opportunity as it has been the entire season after the 2020 campaign was taken away amidst the growing covid pandemic.
“The three seniors, the whole team, was upbeat right from the start in fall workouts,” he said. “The freshmen this year, who had missed their final high school season, were excited to get out there and play again. All of that was great motivation coming into the season. We knew that we had a number of rules and regulations to abide by. But with that, practices and games have been lively and encouraging. We all felt we had a good chance to play well this season.”
Marsilli said the team, with its youthfulness, meshed right away and continued to do so right to the start of the season.
There also is an Alle-Kiski Valley flair with senior Lauren Torgent (pitcher/second base) from Highlands, sophomore Auveonna Perkins (third base) from Valley and freshmen Molly Collins (outfield) from Riverview and Ally Albert (outfield) from Knoch.
Three of the four top hitters on the team are freshmen. Collins has a .299 average with four doubles and a home run. Her 16 RBIs rank second on the team.
Hempfield grad Natalie Heltebrand, an outfielder, leads the team in hitting (.362), RBIs (25), doubles (nine) and home runs (three).
“It’s been a little bit of a challenge because we only have 10 players, but everyone has stayed super healthy and confident,” Zmenkowski said. “We just took it one game at a time and did what we had to do to make it to the playoffs.”