Lucky Charm: Success Follows Eastchester's Barca to Cortland

Eastchester’s Briana Barca has experience being on successful athletic teams.

During her senior year at Eastchester High School, she was captain of the softball team that finished with a record of 17-3 and went undefeated in league play in 12 games. Her sophomore year, the team won 21 games while only losing two, and the year before that the Eagles posted a record of 19-6.

In other words, Barca knows what it takes to win softball games, and she is not too unfamiliar with the sweet taste of victory. That being said, not many things she accomplished at the high school level – and she accomplished many – could have quite prepared her for her first collegiate year and season as a freshman on Cortland State’s softball team.

In Barca’s first year with Cortland State, the Red Dragons made it all the way to the Division III College World Series, eventually bowing out to the National-Champions-to-be from Linfield College, Oregon. It was Cortland State’s seventh trip to the DIII World Series in their history, and their third appearance in the eight-team tournament in the last four years. Cortland won 42 games this past spring, while only losing five and tying one.

“It was unbelievable,” said Barca about her team’s run to the World Series. “Stepping onto this team and coming from a small town, all the players just had so much experience, [it was like] the team had an aura around it. We surprised a lot of teams making it to the World Series. It was a great run.”

Barca played in 20 games at catcher and shortstop with her new team this spring, starting two of them and recording three hits and seven runs in 18 at-bats. In her final year at Eastchester, Barca hit .400 with 24 hits and 11 RBI in 19 games and 60 at-bats. She was named All-Section Honorable Mention that year, and delivered the game winning hit in the Class A quarterfinals versus Tappan Zee.

Barca credits this past year and season for molding her a much more complete and mature softball player, although she admits she was not anticipating the level of camaraderie that would develop between her new teammates and herself.

“I really didn’t know what to expect because I had heard mixed things,” Barca said. “Just always being around the team, you become like a family. Everyone says you get close with your teammates but I didn’t expect it to be that close. The amount of time you put into it is a lot more than high school. You’re always kind of thinking about it.”

Fortunately for Barca, Cortland played a number of their games not too far from her hometown of Eastchester, and even hosted the Regional Tournament, allowing for friends, family, and even former coaches to come cheer her on.

“I was very excited for her,” said Frank Fiore, who coached Barca in both softball and soccer at Eastchester High School. “She was just a prototypical hard-worker and a person that could take over practice, that could be that coach on the field when you weren’t around. I knew when I had her sophomore year on the soccer team that she was going to be a college athlete. I thought it was going to be soccer, but she chose softball and in my mind it could have been either sport.”

The good news for Eastchester fans is that the soon-to-be-sophomore Barca is not likely to rest on her laurels, and between getting stronger, learning the habits of her pitchers, and balancing her student-athlete commitments, knows she still has much room for improvement.

“I’ve a definitely become a better player, which I didn’t even know was possible at my age,” she said. “Even off the field, with time management skills and everything, I just feel like I’ve matured so much in a year. ”