Dadalski hugged every teammate and coach after exiting her Senior Night. She’ll hope to give out many more hugs soon as Ryan sits three victories away from a second consecutive Catholic League softball title.
All Kerri Dadalski ever wanted was for Archbishop Ryan to be a strong enough softball program that girls from the neighborhood wouldn’t feel like they had to go outside of the city to win championships.
Suffice to say she’s accomplished her mission and blazed the trail for future Ragdoll stars.
Dadalski is a senior star pitcher and cleanup hitter for the Ragdolls, who have won 27 consecutive Catholic League games and counting. Following an undefeated run through the league last season following longtime head coach Andy Hafele’s untimely passing, Dadalski has come back for seconds. The program graduated five crucial seniors last year, including Nikki Michalowski (now playing at Hofstra University), whom Dadalski shared the pitching circle with in 2014 en route to Ryan’s first Catholic League softball title since 1995.
Now, the team belongs to Dadalski, a neighborhood kid who won softball championships growing up at Our Lady of Calvary, wanting to do the same so badly at her local high school. She’s on the precipice of title №2, and has done so in such dominating fashion that the Ragdolls could spot league opponents five runs in each playoff game and still likely win in runaway fashion.
And perhaps more important for Dadalski’s legacy, she’s debunking the fact that kids from Northeast neighborhoods have to go to Archbishop Wood or other suburban powers to excel, win titles and get on the radar of college coaches.
“I 100 percent came into this school from Calvary wanting to win championships the way I did there,” Dadalski said after a 15–1 smothering of Neumann-Goretti on last Thursday’s Senior Night in which she pitched two scoreless frames and hit a grand slam and knocked in six during a 15-run first. “My dad always told me to make my mark at this school the way I did there, kind of always telling me, ‘You could do this.’ Winning last year gave me more of a drive to win again this season; it’s the last year I’ll be here as a student-athlete and I want this so badly. It’s amazing — I’ve played tournament ball forever, but this is something different and a lot more special than any of those games.”
Here’s how good the Ragdolls have been in the league this year: they won all 12 games, again, but somehow did so in even more jaw-dropping fashion. They scored 123 runs in those dozen contests and allowed a grand total of six on the other end. Dadalski herself has given up just five earned runs all season, so if you happen to score on Ryan, keep the ball as a souvenir and get Dadalski to sign it. Head coach John Kidwell said that there have been times this season when an opponent gets a few runners on base and the bench becomes loud and alive because they know how rare the opportunity to score on the Ragdolls is.
Against Neumann-Goretti on Senior Night, the game was over in minutes. After a scoreless top of the first, Ryan sent 21 batters to the plate and was in its third trip through the lineup before the Saints could record three outs. Aside from a 4–2 win over O’Hara and a 6–1 decision over Wood, none of the other games have been games at all.
“We know what we want, and we’re going to go after it,” said Dadalski, who is bound for Division I’s Central Connecticut State in the fall. “That’s what we’ve come here to do, to go undefeated for the second straight year. I’ve seen more heart in this group of girls than I’ve ever seen before. We trained harder than we ever have, because I knew if we wanted this, everyone had to be in it wholeheartedly, and that’s what these girls are. I couldn’t have asked for a better team.”
Dadalski was on the mound for the final out in Ryan’s championship victory over Lansdale Catholic a season ago, so it’s not like she’s new to this. But Michalowski and fellow seniors Jenna McGee, Cat Hammer, Kayla Herbst and Megan Miller ran the ship while Dadalski led mostly by example and with her strong play on the field. When they graduated, Dadalski was one of just two seniors left on the roster, leaving a group of youngsters with some experience — but not a ton — to defend the program’s first league crown in 20 years. They’ve done so and more, and it’s clear whose team this is, as Dadalski routinely called her teammates “my players” when expressing pride and appreciation for them.
No longer the hunter, the Ragdolls have shed their skin for the role of the hunted. The bullseye is firmly sewn on to the jerseys of Dadalski and her teammates, something they haven’t hid from
“We know everyone will come at us 10 times harder in the playoffs,” Dadalski said. “When I was a freshman and sophomore, we thought we were cool, but now everyone wants us. We know it, but we don’t gloat it. Teams say they want to come after us and this and that and we’re like, ‘Let’s go.’ We want to play you just as badly, we want to win the Catholic League as badly as you do. Now, we’re all 0–0 again, and this is where it counts. If we play our hearts out the way we have every game, we should be fine.”
Omar Little’s character in the beloved HBO series The Wire had a line where he said, “If you come at the king, you best not miss,” which could be applied to the Ragdolls if you sub in the word queen. Take your best shot and make it a good one, because the way this team is locked in, you’re unlikely to get another. Ryan’s quest for a second straight league crown will begin at home on Thursday.
“Kerri will not let us lose,” said Kidwell, a longtime Hafele assistant in his first year as head coach. “She treats every inning like it’s the seventh of the championship game. These kids don’t know how to lose, and she’s a big reason why. We’re going to follow her. It takes kids like Kerri to give Ryan a chance and show what we can do and do it well. Kerri’s proof that if you’re a parent in the neighborhood, you can send your kid to this school and she’s going to win a lot of softball games.”
Dadalski’s career will wrap soon, but hopefully not before three more league victories and a hopeful run at a state title (the Ragdolls exited in the state quarters last season). And good luck beating her, because you’re unlikely to find a more determined competitor who is as locked in on the mound and in the batter’s box than Ryan’s homegrown superstar. And when the time comes for her to go, she leaves behind a team full of young players who have simply learned from the best.
“I always wanted to make this a school to come to because I always wanted to come here,” she said. “I’ll leave this team with total confidence in everything they do. It’s sad to think about leaving, but anything they do they can do greatly. If they keep their heads on right, they’ll be good as gold. The juniors will be great leaders, and I can’t wait to hear all about them next year when I’m at school.” ••
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Winning cures all: Archbishop Ryan senior pitcher Kerri Dadalski has plenty of reason to smile: her Ragdolls just completed their second consecutive undefeated Catholic League regular season.
Kerri Dadalski’s Ragdolls just completed their second consecutive undefeated Catholic League regular season. The reigning champs have won 27 straight league contests, and need three more victories to snag another title. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTOS
