Former South County Softball Player Excels at Charleston Southern

Years before achieving local recognition for her softball prowess, four-year-old Stephanie Sbardella spent countless hours in her backyard hitting balls from softball tees. Stephanie spent so much time hitting that a functional tee was a rare find.

“I probably went through fifty of those tees in my childhood,” said Stephanie, 19, with a laugh, who reminisced with Patch about her long-standing love affair with the game of softball.

Paul Sbardella, who later served as Stephanie’s assistant high school coach at South County Secondary School, fondly recalls his daughter’s obsession with the sport as a child.

“I’ll never forget. My wife Michelle came home one day from Toys 'R' Us, and they had discontinued the [softball] tees and were selling them for one dollar a piece. So she came home with a half a dozen of them,” said Mr. Sbardella. “Stephanie wore those out. You could never get her out of the back yard.”

Paul and Michelle Sbardella decided sign their daughter up for one of the league’s house teams after happening upon a flyer for the Northern Virginia Girls Softball Association. As she excelled in the house league, another advertisement prompted the Sbardella’s to sign up seven-year-old Stephanie for a travel team. With Stephanie now fully entrenched in softball, free summers and holidays were seldom in the Sbardella household.

“This Memorial Day my wife and I went to the beach. We joked that it was the first Memorial Day we had off since she [Stephanie] was young. We hadn’t had one off until this year,” said Paul Sbardella.

Years removed from her days hitting from of softball tees in her parents’ yard, the South County Secondary alumna recently completed her freshman year at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, S.C.

Shane Winkler, Charleston Southern's head coach, recognized Stephanie's talent immediately. “She’s fearless. She showed me that immediately while playing in our first tournament of the year in a tough environment at an SEC school in South Carolina. She came out and had a couple of big games for us,” he said. “She played extremely aggressively. That’s what I ask for out of my players and she had no problem doing that her freshman year.” 

In her first season playing Division 1 college softball, Stephanie, who filled the team’s utility position, earned second team All-Big South conference honors after an impressive freshman campaign. She finished the season with a .246 batting average, nine doubles and boasted a nine-game hitting streak at one point in the season.

“I love it. It’s so much different than being in high school. You’re living on your own, you’re meeting a bunch of new people, you’re just always doing something,” said Stephanie.

A typical day for Stephanie, a kinesiology major, included attending classes from 8:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m., practicing from 3:00 p.m.- 6 p.m. and attending two hours of study hall after practice. Despite the demands of a busy schedule, she enjoys it thoroughly, saying that she can't imagine doing anything else.

“She’s extremely hard working, and that translates onto the softball field. She also did a great job in the classroom,” said Winker.

Stephanie credits former South County softball head coach, Al Thompson, as a major influence. “Coach Thompson was really big on keeping the team a family. He showed us how to get along. If we had a problem with each other, he showed us how to fix them,” she said, adding that Thompson’s insistence on the team’s family concept helped her immensely in connecting with her new Charleston Southern teammates.

She also acknowledges that Thompson’s confidence in his South County teams during her high school years helped impart to her the will to win. “At South County, we had been in several games against Annandale that went into 15 and 16 innings, and we could not get the one run we needed to win," she said. "But we ended up winning a few of those. Coach Thompson always had confidence in us that we would win."

Despite the nine hour drive from Fairfax Station, Va., to Charleston, S.C., Paul and Michelle remained committed to watching Stephanie this past season in college softball just as they had while she was at South County. The two make it a family affair, and stop in Greensboro, N.C., to visit their other daughter, Nicole, a student at East Carolina, who also happens to be Stephanie’s twin.

“I think I know every mile on 95 down towards Charleston,” said Paul Sbardella, who became somber when conversation turned to talking about the departure of both of his daughters to college in the same year. “With twins, it became an empty nest really quickly. It wasn’t a gradual thing…there wasn’t anyone at home anymore."

With her first year of college behind her, Stephanie will take summer courses at Charleston Southern, and spend time at the beaches and quaint shops the scenic city has to offer. Her impressive freshman season has many in Charleston excited as to what the future beholds for the South County slugger.

“She gained valuable experience this year, which is a major key. She probably had more experience than any of our other freshman players. We’re looking for her to fill a couple of different roles and will try to find as many different ways that we can to keep her big bat in the lineup,” said Winkler.