LYNN — For the first two seasons of her tenure as St. Mary’s softball coach, Paige Licata was fortunate to have an all-star pitcher at her disposal.
Not only that, she had a veteran squad that, along with Mia Nowicki on the mound, didn’t miss a beat with the coaching transition.
That was fine with Licata. It gave her time to settle in. But now those players are gone. Nowicki has graduated, and most of the veterans who carried the team the past two seasons have done likewise.
The team that takes the field this spring will be Licata’s. And if she’s feeling any pressure over that, she doesn’t show it.
“It’s a challenge,” she said. “But it’s good challenge. I like it. We have a lot of young kids, and I think this is the first season that all, or most, of my players have been coached only by me.”
There are only four holdovers. And one of them is named Nowicki. Christina Nowicki, who is a sophomore. But if it seems as if she’s been around a lot longer, it’s understandable.
“She was here as an eighth grader, that’s why,” said Licata. “Actually I’m glad she’s only a sophomore.”
Licata expects that Nowicki, who she calls “Mia 2.0,” will pitch.
“But again,” she said, “with Mia, we pretty much knew you could put her out there and she’d go the whole game. We don’t know about the pitchers this year. It may be that they get tired, or maybe there’s another reason they’d have to be relieved. These are things we’re going to have to find out.”
Also back this year are Talia Smaller, Gia Santanello and Alexis Schumann. And nobody, she says, is walking into a tailor-made position.
“I’d have to say everything’s up for grabs,” Licata said.
And that vibe has clearly been present at tryouts.
“You could tell coming in that kids knew spots were open,” she said. “They knew they would be fighting for positions.
“I like the attitude around the tryouts,” she said. “There’s a lot of determination and competitiveness.”
If anything, Licata has been very much anticipating the new season.
“It’s exciting for me, personally,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of the winter drawing diagrams, and writing things down. Trying to find the best combinations.
“I’m loving it already,” said Licata.
One things she has going for her is Jordan Sullivan, a catcher who transferred in from Revere.
“She’s coming at a great time,” said Licata, who played her high school softball for the Patriots and was an assistant under coach Joe Ciccarello. “With ‘Goalie’ (Emily Stephenson) graduated, we really needed a catcher. A catcher-pitcher combination is a tough thing to fill. Christina is most likely going to pitch, and it helps to have someone on the other end who has varsity catching experience.”
Also a pleasant surprise to Licata are the number of hockey players who came out for softball.
“They are really good athletes,” said Licata. “It’s going to give me a lot of choices.”
Like basketball, the Catholic Central League in softball is loaded once again, Licata said. It starts with Logan McDonald of Austin Prep, a senior who went one-on-one with Mia Nowicki three times last spring and won only once. But it was the game that counted most: the Division 3 North semifinal.
She also expects plenty from Arlington Catholic, Bishop Fenwick and Archbishop Williams.
“It’s a tough league,” she said.
St. Mary’s opens the new season April 6 with a non-conference game at Methuen.
