Family ties add to softball rivalry

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On May 3, Kristin Sortino wore red and purple as Baldwin softball beat Peters Township, 4-0.

A Fighting Highlanders jacket and an Indians shirt underneath, that is.

The first she wore to support her husband, Vince Sortino, Baldwin’s athletic director and softball coach, and the second to support her daughter, Nicole Davis, Peters Township’s softball coach.

That’s just how it goes when you have two family members coaching in the same section. That day, the Highlanders avenged a 5-4 loss to the Indians they’d suffered back in March.

“It’s nothing weird in our family,” Davis said. “My poor mom just has to wear whatever shirts she can.”

Davis is in her second season at Peters after a stint as a Baldwin assistant coach under Samantha Kuharic and one year coaching at StoRox, and Sortino is in his third year of his second stint as Baldwin’s head coach. So it’s the second year father and daughter have shared WPIAL Class 6A Section 1.

However, it’s the first year they’re both head coaching in the WPIAL playoffs at the same time, with Baldwin winning its fourth consecutive section title and Peters finishing in a threeway tie for third place in the section, rebounding after missing the playoffs last year. The Highlanders and Indians are on the same side of the bracket. Again — nothing weird. “It’s kind of cool,” Sortino said. “I raised five kids and we’re a very competitive family. So everything we do, we’re always competing at. … Her being on the other sideline, I look at her as a competitor. She’s my daughter before and after the game, but when we’re playing the game, and she’ll attest to this, I’ll do whatever I can to win the game and to beat her.”

Davis, of course, returns the favor.

Sortino coached Davis’ travel ball team, Pittsburgh Wildfire, when she was growing up. Her senior year of high school, in 2006, the family moved houses, but Davis was allowed to finish out her final year at Bethel Park while her sister, Brittany, younger by one year, began playing for Upper St. Clair.

With Sortino in his first stint as Baldwin’s coach, he coached against both Davis and Brittany at that time. So competing against one another is nothing new.

The pair keeps it civil in games, they said, interacting here and there but knowing when to ignore each other and focus on the game.

“I got hit with a foul ball earlier this year, and the last game we played him, he ended up getting hit with one, too, and it was like ‘That’s what you get for making fun,’” Davis said. “Little things like that, we’re usually good with, even during the game, we know when to talk to each other and when not to.”

Davis was raised to be competitive and play to win regardless of opponent, something she hopes her players embrace when competing against friends.

“We were brought up, you give 110 percent and that’s just how you play, and then afterward you can still be friends and you can still get along,” Davis said. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”