Elite Southern Ocean Softball Team Aiming for World Series Victory

As shadows stretched long on Tuesday evening, the crack of bat on ball and the slap of ball in glove rang out over the Doc Cramer rec fields in Manahawkin, where the Stafford Stingrays softball teams were ignoring the sticky heat and focusing on practice.

The teenage girls of the Stingrays’ 16-and-up team have plenty to work toward. They’re headed to the United States Specialty Sports Association’s Fastpitch World Series in Ocean City, Md. July 25, where they’ll aim to beat out more than 20 top teams from around the country and trump their second-place finish of last year.

The members of the talented travel team have their eyes on the prize, said league tournament director Christine Fife.

“They want it,” she said.

The Stingrays league draws girls from Barnegat, Manahawkin and further south, said coach Lisa Canavan, whose father, Tony Buonavolonta, started the Stingrays league years ago when Canavan’s sister was getting into softball. The 16-and-up team is the cream of the crop.

Canavan, who has coached the team for five years, said there’s great talent in the area – there are several under-sixteens on the team, including 13-year-old star pitcher Hunter Irvin – and the girls spend a lot of time on the field honing their skills.

“It’s like a job for them,” she said, especially when they’re also balancing their school softball season. In the spring, they go straight from after-school practice to her, said Canavan.

And now, with their eyes trained on a World Series victory, they’re forgoing a lot of summer fun. Fewer beach days. Missed parties.

And the families sacrifice too, said league tournament director Christina Fife. They drive the girls to and from practice and far-flung tournaments, and will travel along with them to Ocean City this month.

“They plan their vacations around this,” she said.

It’s hard work for everybody, Fife said, but the girls are motivated.

“They play from the heart,” she said. “It’s not just athleticism, it’s their love for the game.”

And it’s paid off. The team dominates locally, said Canavan. She has little doubt her girls will leave Ocean City with the first-place trophy. But no matter what, Canavan is proud of them.

In part because Canavan herself is young – just 30 – she has a close bond with the girls.

Over the last five years, she’s moved with the team up through the league’s age brackets, watching them grown from kids to talented young woman athletes.

 “They come to me with everything,” she said. She pointed out one 15-year-old warming up her arm with teammates. “She was 10 when she came to me, and she was this big,” Canavan said, holding her hand close to the ground. “Now she’s taller than I am.”

With all the time they’ve spent together, she’s invested in their success. “I even to to their school games and coach them from the sidelines,” she laughed.

Sometimes, the fact that boys’ teams get the lion’s share of attention and sponsorships frustrates the girls and their families. The team spends a lot of time shaking cans and selling raffle tickets to supplement the money they bring in by hosting tournaments.

Canavan said she hoped a World Series win would let the girls get the spotlight for awhile, and maybe win them a sponsor.

“We don’t like it, but we’re used to it,” Tonya Neuweiler of New Gretna, whose daughter pitches for the team, said of the noticeable recognition gap between local boys’ baseball teams and the girls’ softball teams.

But despite that, she said, “they love the game, and they care about each other, too. They all know they have a part to do.”

When her daughter’s on the mound, Neuweiler said, she knows the rest of her team is literally backing her up. “That binds them together.”

Getting noticed for their efforts doesn’t matter so much for the girls, she said.

“They still love to play,” she said. “They’ll do it anyway.”

Support the team:

Come out to the Stingrays' next tournament this Saturday and Sunday, July 16 and 17, at the Doc Cramer fields, Doc Cramer Boulevard and McKinley Avenue, Manahawkin.

Attendees can purchase chances to win handcrafted artwork from local artisans, valued from $175 to $800. Glass artist Antoinette Lotz will also be selling her own pieces and donating profits to the league; call her at 718-877-5909 for more information.