Cougar Softball Team Doubles 2009 Win Total

In the Cougar softball team's second season under the guidance of head coach Lou Cicenia, the Columbia girls have taken a large step forward, if not a leap. After winning just four games a year ago, the locals doubled their win total this season and qualified for the state playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

An 8-19 record may not appear to be something to jump up and down about, but considering where this program was just a year ago and how irrelevant it had been over the last decade, this season was a huge step in the right direction.

"I was hoping to do more this year because I'm a competitor and all I want to do is win," Cicenia said.

There are two things that were major contributing factors to the turnaround of this team. The first is the change from the difficult and now dissolved Iron Hills Conference to the newly formed Super Essex Conference Liberty Division. The second—and likely the most important—is that the girls started hitting the ball.

A year ago, runs for the Cougar girls were about as rare as solar eclipses. With a team of inexperienced and possibly unchallenged girls, the Cougars struggled in all aspects of the game, especially hitting.

While Cicenia said the defense took a step back this season, the hitting was phenomenal. Six Columbia batters with a minimum of at least 40 at-bats hit .349 or better, and five of those girls hit over .390. But as many good hitting stories as there were, none were better than the turnaround of Columbia's all-star shortstop Kyrsten VanNatta.

A year ago, VanNatta hit around .220, according to Cicenia. This season, she hit a whopping .566 and slugged a mind-blowing 1.000. She led the team in virtually every possible offensive category, including homeruns (5), triples (8), walks (9), stolen bases (22) and tied for the lead with Eliza Gray (another great hitting story) in RBI. She struck out four times, which was a team low for any player with 50 or more at-bats.

"Our success lay with her making the adjustments from being a power hitter to being a contact hitter," Cicenia said of VanNatta, whom he calls the best shortstop in the state.

Other hitting successes this season include Gray (.407) as the No. 3 hitter, Samantha Guillen (.349) in the five hole, Kaitlin Kling (.411), Julia LesterTaylor (.392) and freshman Emily Schnorr (.395). As a cog in the three hole, Gray came up with big hits for the Cougars and drove in 21 runs.

"We spent a lot of time on hitting," Cicenia said. "They were making the adjustments that we worked on in practice."

Had it not been for some pitching trouble throughout the season, the Cougars may have ended with a record above .500. Columbia scored 5.03 runs per game but surrendered 6.9. Guillen stepped into the starting pitching role a third of the way through the season after Mary Nolet quit the team. While Guillen wasn't blowing anyone away with her fastball, she threw strikes and had a team-best 3.42 ERA to go along with a 4-2 record, also the best on the team.

The pitching was certainly not helped by the three-plus errors the Cougars made per contest.

"We can score runs; it's just a matter of getting the band-aid on the bleeding to stop runs," Cicenia said.

Columbia's first trip to the state playoffs in quite some time was short lived, with the girls losing to sixth-seeded Elizabeth in the North II Group 4 state sectional playoffs. But now that they've made the playoffs, Cicenia said there's no going back. Next season, the goal is to win a playoff game.

Another highlight of the season—though it came in a loss—was the girls' first-round county tournament game against Montclair, in which they lost 3-2 in extra innings. The first time they played the Mounties this season was at their home opener, which they lost 15-0.

"It's their hard work that validates my job," Cicenia said. "They worked hard for what they got. I'm real proud of my girls."

But the success of this season's team should not just be measured in wins and losses. When Cicenia took over the Cougars, his vision was to build a perennially contending program. Aside from the improvements on the varsity level, the freshman team won a game for the first time in "forever," according to Cicenia, and the junior varsity team finished with a winning record.

"As a program it's a great success. At all levels, the program is growing," Cicenia said. "We're almost halfway there. We still have some groundwork to lay down. The kids need to play in summer leagues. Pitchers have to take weekly lessons."

Perhaps the best news of all is that despite losing some seniors, including Megan Mathews, Lizzy Kling and Ngozi Ike, all of the girls' top hitters are back. Pitching, however, is something they'll have to work on during the off-season.