Thursday, May 22, 2025
Carey’s softball team, currently 9-5 overall and 8-4 in conference play, is having mixed results according to their head coach, Anthony Turco.
“Doing well, it’s just an up and down, long but short season,” he said. “We’re in a conference where everybody is competitive. We have 6 teams in the conference and 5 out of the 6 are 7-3 or 8-3, so everybody is beating each other, so it’s fun in that regard, the competitiveness.”
The week following Easter, Carey played East Meadow and Herricks, not coming out victorious against either squad. The Seahawks fell short at East Meadow April 23, losing 15-6, and two days later dropped a 6-3 decision against Herricks.
“We’ve been struggling recently, last three or four games we haven’t been playing well,” Turco said. “We really haven’t been scoring runs the way we have in the past.”
Despite the recent tough patch, Turco says that his rotation of three pitchers is solid, all with different skill sets for different opponents. Turco explained Adrianna Barragan pitches for location in the strike zone, whereas Andrea Arias he classified as a power pitcher with the strength and speed of her arm. Lastly there’s Kristen Peers whose dominance comes through in her off-speed pitches.
On top of that, Turco holds out plenty of hope for this experience-laden roster to pull through and get back to its winning ways, mostly in the batting lineup, so he and his athletes are not really afraid of any opponent they see on the field after prior varsity seasons.
“We returned a lot of players with varsity experience, they know what the season is about,” Turco said. “It’s a matter of who’s in the circle.”
Devon Barley leads off typically as one of the most reliable hitters on the squad, but the two-hole spot is still up for grabs. The most consistency comes from spots 3-7 on the batting order, with Paige Agate up third followed by catcher and third baseman Sabrina Chapman at clean-up, who Turco called Chapman a pure hitter. Notably, these three players are all, like Aaron Judge, batting over .400.
In the meat of the lineup is Arias at fifth, who also plays first base if she’s not in the circle. Arias leads the team in two categories: home runs with two and the most wins as a pitcher with five so far this season.
After her in the batting order, Barragan typically follows behind and hits for contact according to Turco.
That leaves outfielders Emily Almache and Alessandra Varuzzi in the batting order after them continue the damage.
Turco is optimistic though, with hopes that in the next coming weeks, the bats will get hot as the weather does as well. He’s changed up the lineup every few games, recently putting in Varuzzi into the mix for a changeup. The consistency that Chapman has been bringing the team, Turco hopes, will permeate across the team as well.
