Norwin uses additional day to prepare for WPIAL Class 6A softball title game

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Thursday, May 30, 2024 | 7:16 PM

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As some dust kicked up from a light breeze, Norwin softball coach Brian Mesich sent a pop fly to shallow center field.

He nearly fell backward, but it wasn’t from any dirt specks that sneaked behind his sunglasses. He was trying to put some serious English on the batted ball.

While this looked like an ordinary practice Thursday, the Lady Knights’ last workout before the WPIAL Class 6A championship was anything but. Mesich called it quirky.

The extra day of tuning up saw the fifth-seeded underdogs gather on Norwin’s middle school field, which has a dirt infield like Lilley Field at Cal (Pa.), where the girls will play at 1 p.m. Friday against No. 2 seed Seneca Valley (20-1).

Norwin getting in some final reps for tomorrow's WPIAL 6A softball championship.

Lady Knights practicing at their middle school field, which has dirt like Cal U.@norwinathletics@NorwinSoftball@TribLiveHSSN #WPIALsoftball pic.twitter.com/3lpVh7kshP

— Bill Beckner (@BillBeckner) May 30, 2024

The game was supposed to be Wednesday but was postponed because of rain and pushed to back two days.

Seneca Valley’s graduation was Thursday. Norwin’s three senior players graduated last Friday.

Back to the dirt devils: Mesich and some staffers dragged the middle school field. Norwin plans to be ready for strange bounces.

“We’re working on game-simulation stuff,” Mesich said. “Weird plays. Putting spin on every ball: backspin, topspin, side spin. Worm burners, as I like to call them. We’re even working on a new drill. Throwing was our Achilles in the beginning of the season, so we want to make the clean plays.”

Norwin (10-10), which never has made the final before, hopes the additional day of work will give it a chance to pull a third straight upset in the postseason.

After beating No. 4 seed Pine-Richland, 3-1, in the quarterfinals, Norwin pulled off a shock-the-world kind of win, 5-2 against top-seeded Hempfield, the defending champion and top-ranked team in the state.

“We’ve been getting in a lot of hitting and fielding a lot of ground balls,” said Norwin junior first baseman Rachel Minteer, who went 3 for 4 against Hempfield. “We only had one day off (of practice sine the semifinals). We have made some adjustments.”

Tenth-year coach Mesich, who reached 100 career wins this season, is trying to low-key the championship game experience while making sure the Knights are fundamentally sound to face Raiders ace pitcher Lexie Hames for the third time this season.

Seneca Valley, in the finals for the third straight season, has three straight shutout wins against Norwin. Hames, a Clemson commit, pitched a one-hitter against the Knights and struck out 20 in a 3-0 win early in the year.

“We need to put the ball in play,” Minteer said. “We’re focusing on contact.”

Hames pitched only two innings when Seneca Valley edged Norwin, 2-0, in the section rematch as she endured muscle stiffness in her shoulder.

But the fireballer is back to top health, her mother and coach, Marlesse Hames, said, and that could spell trouble for Norwin. Although the Knights don’t expect to flail at fastballs and watch riseballs sail by.

The approach will change, Mesich said, even if it means using small ball and slapping to set up runs.

“Get the bat on the ball, shorten swings, choke and poke,” Mesich said. “We need to get some baserunners on early. It can’t be 1-2-3 every time.”

Minteer said playing for a championship sort of popped up on the team’s schedule — they are just as surprised as anyone — but they are locked in and eager to see what happens next.

“It’s weird not having school but still be playing softball,” Minteer said. “It feels good to be here. No one expects us to win. We’re going to go out and have fun.”

That is part of Mesich’s “nontraditional” approach to the WPIAL final: just show up and play, and the rest will take care of itself.

The idea of treating the title matchup as just another game seems impossible, but Norwin is merging into that lane.

“It’s a little more casual,” he said. “It’s about playing loose and not puckering up. I always tell the girls: Stress is only stress if you allow it to be stress. (The Raiders) are the favorites. At the start of the year, I just wanted this team to make the playoffs.

“Now, we’re just putting the decoration on the cake.”

……

Sweets for the champs?

Norwin has some incentive to bring home a WPIAL softball championship: sweets.

Coach Brian Mesich likes to cook and bake in his spare time, and he promised he would make the girls a hibachi dinner at his house if the Lady Knights upset Hempfield.

The meal will happen in the near future, when the team’s season finally ends.

If they can knock off Seneca Valley Friday at Cal (Pa.), Mesich said there will be a bonus.

“Dessert,” he said. “I told them I’d make them hibachi, and now I’ll make dessert, too. I make things for them all the time: cookies, cakes, pepperoni rolls, bubble bread. You name it. They seem to enjoy it.”

And the chef certainly would enjoy the program’s first WPIAL title.

—Bill Beckner Jr.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

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