Penn-Trafford softball team hopes to follow in footsteps of 2019 state champs

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Sunday, June 2, 2024 | 6:24 PM

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Penn-Trafford senior catcher Mack Keenan remembers watching the team bus follow a fire truck escort back to Harrison City in 2019 after the Lady Warriors softball team won the PIAA championship.

The town showed up to greet the state champs.

Of course, Keenan was just an impressionable middle schooler then, not one of the current team’s leaders like she is now.

But she and this year’s Warriors have a chance to follow in that historic group’s footsteps.

“We’ve touched on that,” Keenan said. “I knew a couple players on that team. I knew they came back. It was inspirational.”

Penn-Trafford (15-6) will open the PIAA playoffs Monday as the third-place team from WPIAL Class 5A. Central Mountain (14-5), the District 6 champion, will host the Warriors at 4:30 p.m. in Mill Hall, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Harrison City on Route 22 East.

The school is just over 30 miles north of Penn State.

The 2019 team also lost in the WPIAL semifinals before rallying for four straight wins to finish 23-2 for the best season in program history.

This year’s group has yet to pen its final chapter.

“You can’t compare (teams),” Penn-Trafford coach Denny Little said. “It’s like kids: You can’t compare them. So I don’t harp on it. The opportunity is similar.”

This Penn-Trafford team lost to Armstrong, 8-6, in the semifinals. The River Hawks have beaten the Warriors three straight times in the playoffs, including in the WPIAL and PIAA semis two years ago.

Keenan hinted at the players wanting a rematch with the River Hawks, but they need to handle their business, first.

The Warriors rebounded with a 4-1 win over Latrobe in the third-place game, cleansing their collective palate and resetting as a group.

“Our seniors really want this,” Little said. “We have really good leadership.”

Little isn’t comparing the ‘19 team to this one, nor its blueprint to state glory, but he might rekindle state-playoff traditions.

So that means, what, harder practices, more reps and wearing out the pitching machine?

Not quite.

“Swimming, wiffle ball, kickball, things like that,” Little said. “They’ve done so much to this point.”

The team’s two seniors, Keenan and Erin Drotos, graduated Thursday. Little, a teacher at Greensburg Salem, won’t see seniors at his school graduate until Tuesday.

By then, his team might have graduated to the state quarterfinals.

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

Tags: Penn-Trafford