By J. A. Campbell May 23, 2013
Several local Brookfield girls have played for the Empire State Huskies’ Tournament Fastpitch organization over the recent years. Last weekend, one of the latest Brookfielders’ to join the Huskies had the hot bat in an amazing offensive display. Alexandra Fitzgerald is a student at Whisconier Middle School, locally. Ally led the 12U Huskies to victory in the Gold Rush Tournament Championship at the Frozen Ropes Sports Complex. Sixteen 12U softball teams from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania made the trek to The Rock Sports Complex in Chester, New York.
Fitzgerald’s offensive tear led a Huskies’ offense that just simply exploded over the Gold Rush weekend. Fitzgerald’s team outscored their opponents by a lopsided margin of 72 runs scored, while allowing only 16 runs in all their 6 games for the two-day tournament weekend. On Saturday, the Huskies absolutely crushed the competition and beat the the Hudson Valley Hurricanes, the Monroe Crusaders, and the Long Island Bandits by scores of 12 – 2, 14 – 4, and 15 – 0.
On single-elimination Sunday, Ally Fitzgerald increased her own immense production, leading the Huskies as they run-ruled the Southern Tier Smoke Black 16 – 1. That put them in the Semi-Finals against an older Southern Tier Smoke team whom they proceeded to shutout 5 – 0. That put the Huskies into the Championship game against the Orange County (NY) Velocity.
In that exciting back and forth Championship game last Sunday evening under the lights at the Rock, Ally Fitzgerald put her team ahead to stay in the top of the 5th inning by blasting a 3-run homer over the fence in the right-center field alley for her second home run of the Championship Sunday. The Huskies never fell behind again and finally prevailed in a 10-9 nail-biter that went 7 innings.
Fitzgerald’s stat line for the weekend read like something out of the record books: She batted .900 and had an On-Base Percentage of .920 for the 6-game weekend. In 27 plate appearances, Fitzgerald walked 6 times, doubled 4 times, tripled 3 times and homered twice. She had several stolen bases, scored 13 runs and drove in 19 runs. She also had the stellar defensive play at a key turning point in the Semi-Final game to help seal Meghan Schumacher’s shining pitching performance in silencing a strong Smoke’s team bats. That defensive inning sealed the victory to take them to the Championship.
Other stars for the Huskies were Olivia Martino, Olivia Lipski, Gabby Raffa, Sammi Riccardulli, and Angie Serrano. Martino and Serrano also homered. But the coaches emphasized it was a total team effort all weekend long.
The Rock is a 10+ acre indoor and outdoor sports and training facility with the softball and baseball components run by Frozen Ropes.
At least three local Brookfield girls are currently in the Huskies’ organization on two of their teams—Ally Fitzgerald plays 3B, 1B, and OF on the 12U (Koch) team. (Emma Weiss and Keira Frame also play for another Huskies team—the newly formed 12U (Allocca) team.) The Empire State Huskies Fastpitch Softball Organization is located and operates out of Westchester County, New York. They currently have at least 10 teams spread over the 8U, 10U, 12U, 14U, 16U and 18U age levels. Most of these teams are comprised of girls from the tri-state and Hudson Valley region (including, but not limited to, Putnam County, Dutchess County, The Bronx, Rockland, and Orange County in NY; Bergen County in New Jersey and Fairfield County in Connecticut).
The Huskies’ directors and team coaches have decades and decades combined experience coaching fast-pitch softball at the highest competitive levels and have helped numerous players develop the skills needed to play in both high school as well as college. One Husky alumnus recently started and played on the University of Alabama fastpitch team that won the NCAA national championship in 2012, for just one example. 2013 Husky graduates are going to start softball careers at Tufts University, Curry College, Clarkson University, Manhattanville College, Sacred Heart University, SUNY Cortland and Scranton University and other lower-division schools.
