The junior helped the Lady Comets start their season 3-0 by beating two of the top teams in Lackawanna League softball.\u00a0Against defending PIAA Class 4A champion Valley View, Condrad pitched a three-hit shutout with two walks and 10 strikeouts on a 6-0 win. She also had two hits and two RBIs.\u00a0One day later, facing Holy Cross, she again had two hits and two RBIs and allowed two runs and four hits in 4.1 innings with six walks and eight strikeouts in a 10-3 victory.<\/p>\n
Family: Father, Corey; mother, Jennifer; brother, Aiden<\/p>\n
Coach: John Kelly<\/p>\n
Facing two of the league\u2019s powerful lineups, what was your pitching approach: Definitely for Valley View, I knew they had a strong hitting team. So my approach was to be consistent and hit my spots. Most of the time we were able to produce popouts and lineouts. I knew I had the field behind me for those plays. So I was prepared to be able to hit my spots where I was seeing hitters swinging. I kind of had the same approach for Holy Cross, too. They\u2019re also a great hitting team and one of the top 10 teams in our area. I knew my field behind me was going to be able to handle the ball wherever it was placed as long as I was able to put it in the zone for someone to hit.<\/p>\n
Was there a particular pitch that was working well: Definitely my rise ball and my changeup. A few of the hitters were dropping their hands and once I saw that, I went to my pitching coach and said, \u2018Why not mix in a few rise balls?\u2019 They were able to swing under it and get a lot more popouts and my changeup kept them a little off-balance when they were swinging, so they didn\u2019t know what was coming at them specifically.<\/p>\n
How many pitches do you throw: Five, but I usually stick with three or four. Fastball, changeup, rise, drop, screw and an off-speed curve.<\/p>\n
How about your offense in those games and your approach against two very good pitchers: The hitters in front of me motivated me because they were getting themselves on base. Hitting in the three spot, I knew my job was to just put the ball in play, regardless of where it went. That just helped me. Abbi (Call of Valley View) and Ava (Schmidt of Holy Cross) are both great pitchers in our area, so I knew it was going to be tough at the plate. So I was just thinking, Make contact and put it in play.<\/p>\n
Was there one particular big hit you felt you had: At Valley View, I hit something to left field. Avary Brister, the hitter in front of me, was on second and was able to score. It kind of carried the momentum, scoring the first run. So that definitely was a big one.<\/p>\n
What can those two wins do for the team moving forward: The two wins showed us we are capable, regardless of the players that we lost (to graduation). The girls who moved into those positions, I feel they gained so much more confidence in knowing they are able to play in a big spot competing against really great teams. Those two wins just helped our overall team chemistry really gel and realize we are a good team and can make it as far as we need to go.<\/p>\n
In the season opener against Emmaus, the team won in 11 innings. You struck out 17 in 10 innings and threw 186 pitches. What was that like: It definitely was the longest I\u2019ve ever thrown. I didn\u2019t realize what inning we were in for a while. It was back and forth and I realized I just had to focus for my team. When it\u2019s back and forth like that, you lost track of time. So as the innings were going on, I was just figuring out where to locate spots. There were a ton of groundouts that game. So I was just focused on hitting spots, where they needed to go and focusing with my defense positionally where balls are going to be at.<\/p>\n
Were you tired the next day: Oh, yeah. I definitely took a day or two off from throwing. I wanted to finish it out, too. I asked him (coach John Kelly), \u2018Can I get 10 more pitches for the 11th (inning)?\u2019 and he said, \u2018No, you\u2019re done.\u2019<\/p>\n
Favorite teams: Definitely the Philadelphia Phillies. And I\u2019m a huge fan of the Miami Dolphins.<\/p>\n
Favorite food: Chicken tenders<\/p>\n
Cake or pie: Cake<\/p>\n
Favorite school subject: I really like science. I like learning about how life starts and cells and stuff.<\/p>\n
Athletes I admire: Jocelyn Alo. She used to be on Oklahoma, but now she\u2019s in the pro league. I like her work ethic and she\u2019s a phenomenal player on the field and also off the field. She loves to give back to her community and I think that is amazing.<\/p>\n
Superstitions and rituals: Definitely for hitting, before I step into the box, I take a deep breath and then I shake it all out. I pray before my games, too, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s really a superstition. It\u2019s just something I like to do.<\/p>\n
If I could have any superpower, it would be: Able to fly<\/p>\n
One word to best describe me: Kind<\/p>\n
App I use most on my phone: Instagram<\/p>\n
Who is your funniest teammate: Definitely Bella DeRiggi. She always loves to crack jokes. Recently, we got a squishy pickle for our dugout. She\u2019ll spin it around and hit you with it. Her and our left fielder Avary Brister take turns with it.<\/p>\n
Three people I\u2019d like to have dinner with: Michael Jordan, Bryce Harper, Noah Kahan<\/p>\n
Future plans: I\u2019m thinking the pre-med, exercise science-type route.<\/p>\n
You recently committed to Syracuse for softball. Talk about that decision: During the summer, I played travel ball outside the area for a team in Virginia. We were traveling the country basically. My coach told me a list of a few schools that were interested in me. I started to think about it from then. I visited a few schools, going to camps and stuff. Automatically, I just fell in love with the atmosphere at Syracuse. Everyone who goes there loves it, it\u2019s just a surreal environment. I just kind of knew from then that\u2019s where I wanted to go.<\/p>\n
What do you think about Scranton native Gerry McNamara going back there to coach the basketball team: I wear No. 3, too, so I was like, Oh my gosh! That\u2019s going to be great. Now when I\u2019m going to be there, the basketball program is actually going to be good again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The junior helped the Lady Comets start their season 3-0 by beating two of the top teams in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[7804,305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-159149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-athlete-of-the-week","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}