Northern York softball’s dreams came true in a flash.
The Polar Bears were deadlocked with Shaler in the ninth inning of Saturday afternoon’s PIAA Class 5A championship game in State College. As freshman Sabrina Paulin stepped to the plate with two outs and runners on first and second, everyone at Penn State’s Nittany Lion Softball Park knew Northern only needed one swing. The program had never made it this far — and only made the state tournament once before — but this group had plenty of reason to believe.
Paulin delivered that swing, lining a 1-2 pitch for a single up the middle. Samantha Magee raced around third and slid home just before the tag at the plate. The Polar Bears poured out of the dugout and the celebration was on. Players and coaches jumped up and down out of pure bliss, and the hugs continued all through the night.
“That moment is pretty hard to describe in words,” head coach Emily Quatrale said. “Just the relief and the joy of the way that game was going … after holding your breath for what felt like the first nine innings, getting that run across, it was a pretty cool moment.”
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Northern York finished 8-0 in the playoffs to bring its final record to 24-4. The Polar Bears were only the No. 5 seed in the District 3 Class 5A bracket, but they caught fire at the right time. They dispatched Red Land (13-3) and Donegal (11-0) before knocking off top-seeded Solanco, 7-4, and second-seeded Mechanicsburg, 7-4, to claim the district crown June 1.
Triumphs of 13-0 over Hatboro-Horsham and 10-0 over Upper Dublin lifted Northern into the state semifinals for the first time in school history. They held off Abington Heights, 4-1, on June 13 to advance to the final.
After rain pushed the championship game from last Friday to Saturday, Northern pulled ahead of District 7’s Shaler in the fourth inning before giving up the tying run in the sixth. Magee, the Polar Bears’ sophomore ace and cleanup hitter, kept the score level at 2-2 before singling in the ninth and dashing home on Paulin’s single to walk off the Titans (22-2).
“I think after our district championship win, the girls kind of realized … we have the pieces that we need, so let’s all work together, play as a team, have fun with it and see what happens,” Quatrale said. “And we were able to stay loose the whole postseason. They had a ton of fun with it, just dancing and singing before games. I think that helped them play confident, play loose and just play their game.”
Team effort: Quatrale believed from the beginning of the 2023 season that the Polar Bears had the talent. Senior center fielder Hailey Irwin, a Lock Haven pledge, had already established herself as one of the top players in the region. Northern brought back five seniors and was set to surround them with a slew of promising underclassmen.
The Polar Bears posted a 16-4 regular-season record and went 12-2 in the Mid-Penn Colonial division, but a pair of losses to Greencastle-Antrim kept Northern out of the league playoffs. The team lost its season finale to Mechanicsburg, 3-1, then suffered an 8-1 defeat in a scrimmage against Dallastown that Quatrale called a “turning point” entering the playoffs.
“We just had a discussion after the game like, ‘Hey, if you guys want to keep on playing and want to keep winning, we’re gonna have to do something different. You guys are gonna have to figure out how to have each other’s backs and work as a team,’” Quatrale said. “And we were able to hash some things out and came back two days later in our next scrimmage like a totally different team, and just went from there in the playoffs.”
Irwin finished the season with 13 home runs and also led the Polar Bears with 40 hits and 48 RBIs. She was joined on the Colonial division’s all-star first team by third baseman Taylor Yoder, while Magee and shortstop Jessie Li made the second team and left fielder Hannah Keith was named to the third team.
Magee took her game to a new level in the playoffs, pitching 47 of the team’s 51 innings and allowing just eight runs for a 1.19 ERA. The Polar Bears received contributions from up and down the lineup during the postseason, averaging 8.1 runs per contest. And the rookie Paulin may have been the most clutch of all, drilling a key two-run homer in the district final before adding the state championship-winning single.
“The cool thing about this team (is) I felt like someone different came through for us every game,” Quatrale said.
Engineering success: Quatrale, a native of Bellport, New York, played four years of softball at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg. She started 176 games for the Falcons and hit .238/.301/.299 with one home run in 261 career at-bats. She graduated with an engineering degree in 2017 and took a job in York as a field engineer with Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania.
While Quatrale remained passionate about softball and envisioned herself coaching one day, she was surprised when a friend texted her saying she had been recommended for Northern’s coaching position. She had minimal coaching experience outside of camps and clinics, but was offered the job and coached her first season in 2019. Assistants Nicole Ferretti and Ryan Schmitt have worked alongside her from the jump. Quatrale is able to work her day job from home and move her schedule up so she can run practices during the spring.
Northern’s five seniors — Irwin, Li, Kiera O’Brine, Ashley Miller and Hannah Galbraith — entered the fray in Quatrale’s second season but saw their 2020 freshman season wiped out by the pandemic. The Polar Bears reached the district playoffs each of the next two years but were knocked out in the first round both times.
There was no memory bank for this group to lean on as it continued its playoff run. As it turned out, though, Northern’s confidence and determination were more than enough.
“Having never done it before, it kind of felt like a pipe dream,” Quatrale said. “But then as you keep on winning games, you’re like, ‘This team can do this.’”
The dream became reality on Saturday, and the girls received a hero’s welcome when their bus returned to Dillsburg that night. Crowds lined Baltimore Street and waited at the school as firetrucks and police cars led the team back to campus. It was a scene nobody on the team will ever forget, and one each returning player hopes to be part of again.
“Leading up to the title game, you could see the whole community kind of rally around and be supportive,” Quatrale said. “Coming back from State College on Saturday night, they met us with firetrucks, and then driving through town, you get goosebumps when you see all the people lining the streets, just so excited for this group of girls and what they accomplished this year.
“They obviously know all the hard work that (the players) put in, and they just wanted to show their support. So it’s really cool how the whole town came together for that.”
