3/1/22
 
SB: 2022 Media Day Recap And Season Preview
 
SCRANTON, Pa. – The Lackawanna College softball team comes into the 2022 campaign with a solid mix of returning players and new faces, which coach Jeff Pittsman hopes can translate into on the field success in 2022. The Falcons gathered two weeks ago for their annual Media Day, where the discussion inevitably turned to what to expect from the squad.
 
Lackawanna College, which finished 17-11 and made the Region XIX playoffs last season, returns a handful of players from last year's team, including the majority of their pitching staff. Meghan Fritz was the staff ace last year, going 8-1 with a 3.74 ERA, striking out 30 batters over 54 innings pitched. She started 12 games for Lackawanna College. Stephanie Kibbe and Tess Ruschman will also return for the Falcons on the bump, splitting nine starts between themselves last year. Kibbe struck out 15 batters in 26.2 innings pitched last year, winning three games, while Ruschman had a 3.94 ERA in 21.1 innings pitched. MacKayla Quick also returns. Quick struck out 21 batters in 21 innings pitched, making eight appearances for the Falcons last year.
 
Kibbe, a pitcher from Fontana, CA, is excited to get the 2022 season up-and-running.
 

 
While Lackawanna lost some of its top-end hitting from last year, the Falcons do return a pair of solid hitters in Savannah Glover and Madison McVicar. Glover hit .349 in her 20 appearances, along with a .429 on-base percentage. McVicar hit .333, with a 1.063 OPS and eight extra-base hits, including three homeruns. Also back at the plate are Kibbe, Ruschman, Skylynn Gilligan, and MacKayla Quick, all seeing action last year.
 
Ruschman, a pitcher from Easton, PA, looks forward to seeing what she and her teammates can do this season.
 

 
Lackawanna College will also add a host of young talent with the incoming class of freshmen. Gwen Balavage and Emma McNally will be familiar to softball fans in NEPA. Balavage was a Lackawanna League All-Star selection at catcher in her time at Scranton Prep, while McNally was an honorable mention first base/utility choice at Scranton High School. Alexis Semanek, a catcher/utility player from nearby Wilkes-Barre Area, also joins the Falcons. Semanek led WBA last year with a .370 average. Catarena Sommers, a freshman from Windham, OH, also joins the squad this season. Sommers hit .415 her senior year, driving in 32 runs and hitting nine doubles at Garfield HS.
 
The pitching staff adds freshmen Alivia Graber and Jennifer Wolak. Graber, a lefty from Syracuse, NY, was a part of a Cicero-North Syracuse squad that went undefeated last spring. She split time as the second pitcher for Cicero-North. Meanwhile, Wolak, a right-handed pitcher from Morrisville, PA, was a part of a Pennsbury HS squad that went 14-4 last spring.
 
Coach Jeff Pittsman enters his 11th season at the helm of the Falcons. Coach Pitt has won multiple EPAC Coach of the Year honors, and had a fantastic 2019, when he helped guide the Falcons to a 34-21 overall record, and a second-place finish in Region XIX. A Mid Valley HS graduate and Northeast PA native, Pittsman took over a Falcon program in 2012 that barely had enough student athletes to field a team. After grinding through a winless first season, Pittsman improved the Falcons to 13-19 in just his second season. Lackawanna went 14-14 in 2014, but it would be 2016 where he'd guide the Falcons to their first winning season in his tenure, an impressive 25-14 overall mark. It was the first of four straight 20+ win seasons, which included a Region XIX championships in 2017, where the Falcons fell just one game shy of qualifying for the College World Series. The Falcons were 8-3 in 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the rest of the season down. Coach Pittsman is optimistic that the Falcons will improve as the season goes on.  
 

 
The 2022 season starts for the Falcons this upcoming weekend, when Lackawanna College travels to Myrtle Beach, SC to play a handful of games at the Cal Ripken Experience Baseball and Softball Complex. Lackawanna opens its season against Bay College on Sunday, March 6^th, with first pitch of a doubleheader expected at 3:00pm ET. Bay College, otherwise known as Bay de Noc Community College, is out of Escanaba, MI, up on the upper peninsula of The Wolverine State. The Norse, who compete in Region XIII, were 19-29 overall last season, but did compete in the Region XIII tournament, making it to the championship game before falling to Miles Community College.
 
The doubleheader with Bay is the first of several for the Falcons in Myrtle Beach, with another doubleheader against Bay College, back-to-back days of doubleheaders against Rochester CTC, and a doubleheader against Henry Ford CC rounding out the Spring Break trip.
 
Pay attention to lackawannafalcons.com for more scheduling updates and information.