SOFTBALL PITCHER WAS PERFECT A DECADE AGO
The Post-Gazette periodically takes a look at outstanding athletes from the area.
Geena Badolato / Mt. Lebanon, Class of 2010
Geena Badolato is 28, married and the mother of a 1-year-old son, but she wonders if she looks more like a high school senior.
“I must look the same because I still get carded when I go buy a scratchy lottery ticket,” Badolato said.
But when Badolato was a senior at Mt. Lebanon High School 10 years ago, a big part of her identity was as a softball pitcher — and that’s where she looked like no one else in PIAA championship history.
On the third Friday of June in 2010, Badolato was stunning in her Mt. Lebanon blue and gold uniform. She looked absolutely perfect. This June is the 10-year anniversary of Badolato pitching the first perfect game in the history of PIAA softball championships as Mt. Lebanon edged Central Bucks South, 1-0, in the Class 4A title game at Shippensburg University’s Robb Field.
The PIAA had been staging softball championships since 1975, but no pitcher had looked so perfect in the first 34 years. Then the girl with two ‘O’s’ in her last name made history with a bunch of zeroes. Zero runs.
Zero hits.
Zero errors.
Zero walks.
Badolato is now formally Geena Nearhoof, married to Nolan Nearhoof, a former standout football player at Mars High and Robert Morris University. But no matter the name, perfection still seems to be part of her identity.
“That game does come up a good bit still,” Badolato said with a laugh. “People sometimes say, ‘You were that pitcher, weren’t you?’ Then they might joke and ask if I ever threw a perfect game. ‘Yeah, I did actually.’”
And she did it on the grandest of stages.
“I’m only 5 feet 5, so that throws people off a little that I could do something like that,” Badolato said.
But Badolato did a lot for Mt. Lebanon in that 2010 season. She was the Post-Gazette Player of the Year, a four-year starter who was 22-3 as a senior with a 0.38 ERA and 219 strikeouts. She pitched a four-hitter and had two RBIs when Mt. Lebanon beat Shaler, 7-2, in the WPIAL championship. Badolato pitched a one-hitter in the PIAA semifinals, giving up only a seventh-inning single. That means in the semifinals and championship, she allowed only one hit in 14 innings.
Badolato has vivid memories of the PIAA championship. Not just for the perfect game, but how it played out.
Mt. Lebanon scored the only run of the game in the first inning on Tess Apke’s home run. Badolato finished with 11 strikeouts and no ball left the infield. The best defensive play came in the fifth inning when third baseman Kathleen Morrison snagged a line drive.
“I think I was lucky that day because my teammates were doing everything behind me,” Badolato said.
The finish to the game was dramatic. With two outs, Badolato ran the count to 3-2 on Central Bucks South’s Haileigh Stocks. One more pitch out of the strike zone and perfection would slip away into the warm afternoon air in Shippensburg.
“I remember the next pitch was a ball,” Badolato said. “But she swung and missed. It would’ve been a walk.”
As fate would have it, Stocks would go on to play softball at Robert Morris. Badolato would go on to be a pitcher at Robert Morris.
“We always would joke about that last pitch,” Badolato said.
Badolato played four years at Robert Morris, where she won 34 games and pitched 516 innings. She had a career ERA of 2.97.
It was at Robert Morris that Badolato met Nearhoof, who graduated as the Colonials’ leader in career tackles and sacks. The couple now lives in Mt. Lebanon, but plans to move to South Fayette this summer.
Geena Badolato works part time for an architectural firm (RBA International) on the South Side. She also helps out some with marketing and social media work for Bado’s Pizza Grill & Ale House, a popular Mt. Lebanon restaurant owned by Geena’s father (Frank Badolato). Geena and her husband also work Bado’s food truck sometimes.
Geena believes one of the things that made the 2010 Mt. Lebanon team special was the close bond among players and coaches. The team was coached by Nicole Fajtak.
“She got married the summer after our senior year and some of us were part of the wedding,” Geena Badolato said. “She still comes in the restaurant.”
Badolato still stays in touch with a number of her Mt. Lebanon teammates and is good friends with Bre Tongel, the first baseman on the 2010 team.
“Pittsburgh is one of those small big towns where so many people know each other,” Badolato said.
And Geena Badolato will always be known for perfection.