Ryan senior pitcher Kerri Dadalski is the team’s top returning player. She was on the mound when the Ragdolls clinched the Catholic League title last season. TIMES FILE PHOTO
Needless to say, last softball season was anything but normal for Archbishop Ryan.
On the doorstep of the 2014 season, the program’s longtime head coach, Andy Hafele, passed away suddenly after a battle with cancer at just 62 years old. The loss devastated the team, gutting the players and coaches emotionally, and they played the entire season in Hafele’s honor, wearing A.H. patches on their jerseys and praying before each game while holding his Mass card.
And while Hafele, who had been at Ryan for two decades, was not there physically (one of his assistants, Vince Capizzi, coached the team in an interim role), his spirit sure was. The Ragdolls went undefeated in Catholic League play, winning the program’s first league title since 1995, Hafele’s second year on the job. They did so on the backs of five experienced seniors: pitcher/shortstop Nikki Michalowski (now playing softball at Hofstra), third baseman Catherine Hammer (West Chester), second baseman/leadoff hitter Jenna Magee and outfielders Kayla Herbst and Megan Miller, who made it a personal mission to win the crown for their fallen coach.
Now, one year later, the Ragdolls’ role has shifted from hunter to hunted. Their dominant run through the league last season has placed a target squarely on their backs, and many new faces — but some old ones, too — will be tasked with delivering a repeat.
One of those old faces, albeit in a new role, is John Kidwell. Kidwell, who was a Hafele assistant for 23 years, takes over as the program’s head coach. Like many of the school’s head coaches — Frank McArdle, Ryan Haney, Mike Bradby, Bernie Rogers, to name a few — he is a Ryan graduate (Class of 1989). Kidwell met his wife while a student at Ryan, and has a son who currently attends the school. Kidwell had some professional and personal conflicts that prevented him from having a bigger role on last year’s team; however, as some things began to subsequently open up, he realized this was a responsibility that he wanted.
“Andy was a mentor to me,” Kidwell said during a Monday afternoon interview. “I’m 44 years old, and I started coaching here with him in my early 20s. All of us assistants saw how he ran a program, and we tried to run it the same way after his passing. We all kind of just said to ourselves, ‘Well, what would Andy do?’ The school is very important to me, and I’ve been a big part of building this program over the years. Now that I have the time, I want to do everything I can to keep this thing going in his honor, which would be to keep it a very good, winning program.”
And even though more than a year has passed since Hafele died, Kidwell still finds it strange not to find the program’s most familiar face in his customary spot at the end of the bench, sitting atop an empty, overturned bucket used to hold softballs.
“A lot of the time I still find myself driving to the school, and when I get around the corner, I start looking for Andy,” Kidwell said. “He was the rock of the program all those years, and then all of a sudden he wasn’t there. It was both a great year and a real sad year. It was an incredible run the team went on, and it turned into a storybook season. We had so many close games, but the girls just refused to lose. They saw that we could get there, and once we did, they wouldn’t be denied.”
The Ragdolls toppled Little Flower, Conwell-Egan and ultimately Lansdale Catholic in the title game, a 5–0 victory that appeared in jeopardy of being washed out by rain. But the weather held off until just after the final out; shortly after the fly ball to left landed in Meg O’Neil’s glove, the skies opened up and soaked the champs. Later, pitcher Kerri Dadalski said it wasn’t rain; rather, they were Hafele’s tears of joy sent all the way from heaven to remind the team that he was still watching over them.
Luckily for Kidwell, Dadalski, arguably the program’s best pitcher and hitter, will return this year for her senior season. Also back is junior catcher Sarah Ostaszewski, who made tremendous strides both in the backstop and at the plate last season as a sophomore. If anything, this top-notch batterymate should help ease Kidwell’s transition from career assistant to top dog.
“Walking into my first year as head coach with a pitcher and catcher as dominant as those two, it certainly makes things easier,” Kidwell said. “They’ll bat three-four for us, and they’re two of the most intense softball players you’ll ever see. Those two will be great leaders, and they’ll show the underclassmen how we practiced and how we won last year. They’ll be our coaches on the field, and I couldn’t ask for two better kids to do it. It makes it hard for the younger kids to take a practice off when you have leaders who work as hard as Kerri and Sarah do.”
Ostaszewski has been catching Dadalski since the two played CYO softball at Our Lady of Calvary, and much of the Ragdolls’ hopes of repeating rests on the duo’s shoulders. Also returning will be O’Neil in left field, Reilly Kerr at first base and Victoria Black in center. Michelle Hooten (third base) and Ostaszewski’s younger sister, Emily (shortstop), will also be in the fold, but Kidwell realizes he has to replace 75 percent of his starting infield (Hammer at third, Michalowski at short and Magee at second), so the road to repeating will be anything but easy. Hammer provided stout defense at the hot corner in addition to her thunderous bat, while Michalowski played a great shortstop and combined with Dadalski for a truly fearsome one-two punch on the mound. Slap-hitting Magee was the team’s table-setter, a constant threat to get on base and get herself into scoring position so that the team’s power bats in the middle of the order could drive her home.
Little Flower and St. Hubert will provide tough local tests as usual, and Kidwell expects Conwell-Egan, Lansdale Catholic, Bonner-Prendie and Cardinal O’Hara to all return talented squads capable of snatching the trophy away from the Ragdolls.
“I’d say there will probably be eight or nine teams who will all be very competitive,” Kidwell said. “Having a pitcher like Kerri is going to buy us some time to get girls ready and more comfortable in their new roles, but we also realize we have a lot of work to do. I don’t expect us to go undefeated again, but we are confident, especially in Kerri and Sarah, and we’ll ride them as far as we can. Having a great pitcher can hide a lot of deficiencies, but these girls also have to get used to playing together on the same field.”
And even though some sense of normalcy should be restored to the program this season, Kidwell will still miss Hafele’s presence, which is exactly why he wants to keep things running similarly. After all, why mess with success?
“Last year was very emotional for everybody,” Kidwell said. “We want to repeat and win another championship. That’s certainly the goal.” ••
Follow Ed on Twitter @SpecialEd335
The Ryan softball program won its first league title since 1995 last season. Can the Ragdolls repeat? TIMES FILE PHOTO
