By: Rich Fisher
Fred Leske is not looking for miracles, he’s just looking for his young players to keep competing as hard as they have been.
"This team is very young, eight of the 11 girls are 11 years old," said Leske, who is managing the Cranbury-Plainsboro 12-year-old all-star softball team. "But I have a lot more competitive girls than we ever had before. The 10-year-old team went 1-3, but never got 10-run ruled and was very competitive."
This year’s roster consists of Amy Allen (P/SS/2B), Amanda Allen (3B/1B/P), Deanna Boehm (OF), Sarah DiLella (3B/2B/OF), Lisa Faraci (1B/OF), Melissa Fryer (OF/P), Cassandra Ireland (LF), Mary Kate Johnson (OF), Morgan Leske (P/SS), Krissy Mastrangelo (C) and Christine Natoli (OF).
The softballers begin District 12, Pool B play tonight in East Windsor with an 8:30 game against New Egypt. C-P will play host to Lawrence at 3:30 Sunday, hosts West Windsor 6 p.m. Monday and will play Millstone-Roosevelt at 8:30 Wednesday night.
"Morgan Leske and Amy Allen will be my number one pitchers, they’ve both played a lot of travel ball," Leske said. "Fryer and Amanda Allen will also pitch and I can go to Faraci if I have to.
"Morgan and Amy both can windmill the ball and both can bring it. And Mastrangelo has a good arm behind the plate. Our strength will probably be our defense. We have a lot of girls that can play in the infield who have been playing travel softball."
The offensive standouts look to be Faraci, Mastrangelo, DiLella and Morgan.
"We have a tough draw, West Windsor is a perennial power and I would expect New Egypt to be good," Leske said. "If we were in the other pool I’d be upset if we didn’t get out of the pool. Our goal is to still get to bracket play, but it’s not going to be easy with this pool."