Back injury shelves Reingle’s stellar start

Former SJV star will be missed by St. Peter’s College squad

BY GEORGE ALBANO Staff Writer

BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer

Tricia ReingleTricia Reingle Tricia Reingle’s first year of pitching on the college level started just the way she thought it would.

But she never envisioned it ending the way it did.

Reingle got off to a flying start this spring pitching for St. Peter’s College as she won her first six starts and led the Peahens to one of their best starts in years.

Only 12 days into the 2006 season, however, Reingle’s back began to bother her, forcing her coaches to shut her down for two weeks. But when she returned, it was no better, and after two more painful starts, Tricia Reingle’s freshman season was over.

It turned out she had a hairline fracture in her back.

“I ended up going for an MRI and X-rays, and the doctors said I had two stress fractures in my back and two herniated discs,” Reingle said the other day while sitting in the St. Peter’s softball office. “I felt fine all year, and the team was playing really well. We went to Florida, and I threw real well down there, but then my back started bothering me. I don’t even know what happened.”

“The MRI showed Tricia had a previous hairline fracture in one of her discs,” said St. Peter’s softball coach Jeff Horohonich. “She probably never knew she had it. You could see it had basically healed, but a new one was causing the problem. She probably had the original hairline fracture years ago and didn’t know it.

“Tricia was pitching real well too,” he added. “She had a good Florida trip and was pitching real well in Delaware. It was a game in Delaware she pitched well, but at the end felt uncomfortable. So we got her checked out and decided to rest her and get some rehab. Then she tried to come back, but you could tell she was not pitching like her normal self.”

Of course, Reingle’s “normal self” is not like most pitchers. Anyone who followed her outstanding career at St. John Vianney would attest to that. In four years at SJV, the Aberdeen resident went 83-5, tying the Shore Conference record for the most career wins by a pitcher. Reingle’s 1,131 career strikeouts were also the fourth-most in state history.

As a senior, Reingle went 26-2 with a 0.15 ERA, giving up only four earned runs and 49 hits in 184 and two-thirds innings. She also broke her own Shore Conference record with 384 strikeouts.

This came on the heels of a junior year that saw her go 30-0 with a 0.07 ERA, and 364 strikeouts in 194 innings pitched. A three-time all-state selection, Reingle led the Lancers to four straight Shore Conference championships and a pair of NJSIAA Parochial A state titles.

So it came as no surprise when she picked up right where she left off at St. Peter’s College. The Peahens opened their season with the 2006 Rebel Games in Florida, where they faced teams from all over the country. After losing their season opener to Valparaisa 7-1, Reingle made her collegiate debut on the mound and promptly fired a four-hit shutout with six strikeouts as St. Peter’s blanked Maine 2-0.

The next day, she tossed a six-hitter and fanned six more batters as the Peahens edged Monmouth University, 4-3. The day after that she beat Robert Morris, 4-3, and two days later Reingle threw a two-hit shutout and struck out eight in a 2-0 win over a highly rated South Dakota State team.

Then in her fifth and final start down south, Reingle beat Lehigh 7-4. St. Peter’s went 7-3 on the 10-game trip (one of its best showings ever), and Reingle went 5-0 with five complete games, a 1.60 ERA, and 30 strikeouts and only five walks in 35 innings pitched.

A week later, St. Peter’s traveled to Delaware for another tournament and Reingle made her sixth start against LaSalle, one of the teams the Peahens lost to in Florida. But this time they beat them, 15-6, behind the six-hit, 10-strikeout pitching of Reingle. She also belted two doubles and drove in a pair of runs in the game.

That gave St. Peter’s a record of 9-3, and Reingle a perfect 6-0 mark. Everything seemed to be going fine.

But that was also the game Reingle first experienced some discomfort in her back.

“As soon as that game was over my back began bothering me,” she recalled. “I thought I pulled a muscle or something. But the pain just progressed.”

The LaSalle game was March 17, and Reingle didn’t pitch again until April 2.

The Peahens went 3-7 during her absence, and then lost the second game of a doubleheader to Marist, 9-4, with Reingle on the mound. She pitched only four innings, and gave up five runs and a uncharacteristic five walks as she suffered her first loss.

Reingle took another week off before trying to pitch again in an April 9 game against Siena, but again she wasn’t herself. She lasted only four innings again, giving up four runs (two earned), five hits and three walks in a 6-1 loss.

“You could tell she was in pain,” Horohonich said. “She gave it her best effort, but I told her we were not going to sacrifice her getting injured, so we decided to just shut her down for the rest of the season.”