Mar 30, 2018 3 min read

Belle Vernon has won WPIAL softball championships in two of the last three years, and it has never lost a WPIAL playoff game with Bailey Parshall in the pitching circle.

Will more of the same be in store for the Leopards this season?

Belle Vernon, as it has been in recent seasons, is the favorite in Section 2-AAAA, and could be considered the favorite to win WPIAL and PIAA championships.

However, neighboring Yough, Belle Vernon’s most-bitter and heated rival, can make a legitimate claim that it is the Section 2-AAAA favorite.

Belle Vernon and Yough, along with Mt. Pleasant, the defending state champion from Section 1, are expected to be the top three Quad-A teams in the WPIAL and entire state.

How does all of this play into the season for head coach Tom Rodriguez, who is 233-105 and has three WPIALchampionships in his 16 years as head coach? Ever the quiet leader, Rodriguez did not share a lot when talking about the season.

“One of our expectations is to win the section,” he said. “We also expect to go deep in the playoffs.”

Leading the way is Parshall, the southpaw ace who is one of the top pitchers in the country and has signed with Penn State. Parshall committed to the Nittany Lions before she had even thrown a pitch in her high school career.

Parshall, who has a 56-9 career record, is one of five starters back for the defending WPIAL Class AAAA champions and she also led the team with a .551 batting average.

Rodriguez has often been asked about Parshall over the years, and his response is always the same.

“Bailey is Bailey,” he said of Parshall, who has broken every school pitching record and will push the numbers beyond reach this season. “We know what we are going to get from her every time.”

The other returning starters include senior shortstop Kourtney Gavatorta (.351), junior first baseman Mekenzie Sokol (.343), senior third baseman Alex Sokol (.262) and junior center fielder Jordan French (.190).

Two key new starters will be a pair of juniors, catcher Ally Pacak and second baseman Lindsay Steeber.

“They are top newcomers,” Rodriguez said.

Though Yough lost to Belle Vernon in the WPIAL title game, it went deeper into the PIAA tournament last year as the Cougars fell in the state semifinals to Mt. Pleasant one round after Belle Vernon lost to the Vikings.

Another section crown, a third WPIAL title in four years and an elusive PIAA title would make Belle Vernon’s run one for the record books.

And it would be fitting for Parshall to lead the team to a PIAA championship on the same field – at Penn State – where she will play her next four years of softball. But that is a long way off. The Leopards have to win a lot of games to get that far but they are off to a good start. Parshall struck out a school-record 20 batters in Belle Vernon’s season-opening 2-1 win over Steel Valley. Parshall and Gavatorta drove in the Leopards’ runs.