Ray Barile met his players in the circle as Holy Child celebrated wildly a few feet away. It was the third straight time Horace Mann had reached the NYSAISAA softball final and the third straight the Lions had fallen short of the ultimate goal.
“I said, ‘Hey, I can say the same thing as last year – it’s great we’re here,’” Barile said after his team’s 5-3 loss Tuesday at Manhattanville College. “But just look at that celebration over there. That’s the celebration we want next year.”
Horace Mann (10-5) loses just two seniors – Cara Annunziata and Billie Kanfer – and brings back a core that has been to at least two state championship games. This one will sting for awhile, though, because of just how close the Lions came and all the fight they showed.
Down to their final out in the seventh inning, Jaime Gropper singled. Then Jenny Reiss got a base hit. Ashley Gerber hit another single to load the bases. Stephanie Chi followed and hit a rocket of a ground ball to the left side of the infield. Juliana Capasso stabbed it and ran to the bag at third, beating Reiss by inches.
“If the ball was two inches to her left, she would have never gotten it and we would have tied the game,” Barile said.
Kathleen Samuelson gave up just two runs to lead Holy Child, which enjoyed its first-ever NYSAISAA title. In the semifinals, the Gryphons defeated six-time defending champion Poly Prep. Capasso also had two hits.
Horace Mann actually led 2-1 in the second inning after a Chi RBI single, but Holy Child scored twice in the third inning to make it 3-2 and twice more in the fifth. Kaitlyn Puglia drove in Sara Land (2-for-4, 2 stolen bases, RBI) in the sixth to cut the deficit to 5-3 and then ace Mia Farinelli danced out of a big jam in the bottom of the sixth.
“That’s when I thought we were gonna win the game,” Barile said.
It was not to be, though, as close as the Lions came. They lost last year, 13-6 in nine innings, and the year before they fell, 9-0, to rival Poly Prep. Barile joked with his players that maybe they need to find a better coach – he’s now 0-4 in NYSAISAA finals.
But next season has promise with so many experienced players back. And there’s only one goal.
“This is where I expect to me a year from now,” Barile said. “Celebrating.”