Dreams Deferred
Former area athletes see spring seasons, college careers shortened
Regan McComb had waited four years for this moment.
After three seasons as a backup goalie on the Coastal Carolina women’s lacrosse team, the former Upper Perkiomen standout had earned a starting spot between the pipes for the Chanticleers in her senior season.
“It was everything that I had been working for since I was 12 years old starting to play club,” said McComb, who was a first team Mercury All-Area selection her senior season at Upper Perk. “When you’re at practice and stuff, you don’t work that hard to sit the bench. I knew eventually my opportunity would be there, so when I got it, I played every game like the opportunity wasn’t going to be there. Because for three years, it wasn’t there.”
McComb started five games, including a trip up to Philadelphia to play Temple. Then, like thousands of others around the country, her final season came to a halt.
The Sun Belt Conference suspended its sports seasons indefinitely March 12 to address growing concerns surrounding the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The conference officially canceled all athletic events for the rest of the academic year on March 16.
“I got five games. The good part is I didn’t know that was going to be my last game,” McComb said. “For that to be taken away, it was kind of unbelievable. I think me and the other seniors are still in shock. When you think about why a season would end, you think, ‘Oh, what happens if I get injured,’ something like that. But this is just completely unheard of. I think we’re all just still in a little bit of shock.”
McComb’s story is not uncommon as many former standouts from the area across all levels of college athletics have had what was supposed to be the final acts of their athletic careers suddenly cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has had a global impact much larger than the sports world.
The NCAA announced the cancelation of its winter and spring championships March 12 and individual schools and conferences quickly followed suit.
“It definitely sucks knowing that your last season is taken away from you,” said former Pottstown baseball player Logan Pennypacker, now at Albright College.
“We obviously didn’t agree with it at first,” he added. “But after further research and talking about it individually with our coaches and our teammates, we came to the sense that it was what’s best for the world right now, what we’re going through.”
Former Perkiomen Valley softball standout Emily Oltman, now a senior pitcher at Rider University, said she’s caught up with several high school teammates and others she has played with who like her are still trying to wrap their heads around the situation.
“There’s so many people who have been affected by it that have reached out to me, and I’ve reached out to them seeing how they’re doing,” said Oltman. “Everyone’s just heartbroken. They realize this is what had to happen. Everyone knows that, but it’s still heartbreaking.”
*** Pottsgrove grad Madison Davis seemed to be in the midst of a dream senior season.
After a breakout junior year, Davis was once again a large part of the Marymount (Va.) University women’s lacrosse program, tallying nine goals and leading the Saints with 15 assists as they got out to the first 7-0 start in program history.
As she watched other schools and leagues end their seasons, Davis realized the fantasy could soon turn into a bit of a nightmare.
The message she had been dreading came March 16 when her coach Facetimed her and the team’s other two seniors, letting them know their season had been canceled due to the coronavirus.
“This was history for us. We thought it was our year,” Davis said. “We were gonna win our conference. We had potential to go to NCAAs because of the great year we’d been having. To see it all come to an end so abruptly and so drastically, we still have no words. It’s terrible.”
Logan’s brother, Mason Pennypacker, had put together a successful baseball career at Penn State Berks over the last three seasons.
Mason, a first team AllNorth Eastern Athletic Conference selection in 2019, was striving for the league’s player of the year award this season. He was hitting .448 in 10 games.
He and the rest of the seniors, including Mercuryarea alumni Drew Skrocki (Spring-Ford) and Justin Butler (Boyertown), had aspirations of taking home their third league title in the last four years and ending their careers with an
NCAA Division III Tournament trip.
“Me and all the seniors, we talked,” Mason Pennypacker said. “We had so many things we wanted to try to accomplish, bring back another championship to the school and then just personal goals too… You put in all that work in the offseason, and then the year was going pretty well. We were like, ‘We’re going to do this. This is the plan. We have a chance to do this. If we fix this up, we’ll be better off.’
“To get the news that we don’t even get a chance to prove ourselves, and all the work we put in we don’t even get a chance to show it, that was probably the toughest thing to accept that it’s over. All the work means nothing. It kind of felt like a slap in the face to all the seniors.”
At the end of the month, Davis was set to celebrate her Senior Day against high school teammate Courtney Petrucelli, a senior at Neumann University. Davis’ team, which went 10-10 two seasons ago, had its eyes set on a deep postseason run after its undefeated start.
“I’ve played and loved the sport of lacrosse since third grade, so not being able to finish what I’ve started is the hardest part,” Davis said. “Although I was able to end my last season 7-0, I’m still missing out on conference play, championships, and the chance to win a ring one last time.
“And just as of yesterday, I lost my graduation as well. Everything I’ve worked hard for over the past 12 years, I’ve lost within hours. I’m still in shock.”
***
For others, the circumstances around their final college seasons had not been quite what they envisioned.
Former Methacton track & field standout Caroline Duffy, now a senior at Saint Joseph’s, missed her winter season, while she dealt with hip issues. Her injuries prevented her from attempting to break the school’s indoor 500-meter record.
Duffy, Saint Joseph’s record holder in the indoor and outdoor 400-meter and part of four school relay records, came into the spring healthy, but she didn’t have a chance to compete as the Hawks’ first meet wasn’t scheduled until March 28. She had hoped to run in one last Penn Relays and break her own outdoor 400 record one more time.
“Unfortunately it won’t be happening, but at least I can look back and still be proud of what I was able to achieve in that amount of time,” Duffy said.
“It’s bittersweet to end your entire track career that way, but at the same time health is priority and I don’t want anyone to get sick on our account,” she added.
Kutztown baseball player Mitch Pinder, who spent the last three seasons playing with former Boyertown teammate Ryan Weller, missed his entire junior season with an elbow injury and missed significant time as a sophomore with a broken arm.
Despite being eligible for a fifth year, Pinder was set to graduate with a sports management degree and had dreams of following his father, a hitting coach at Kutztown, into coaching baseball after the 2020 season.
Pinder had nine hits in the team’s last six games before the PSAC canceled its spring sports seasons March 13.
“It’s tough for all of us I think, just kind of waking up and hearing the news that your senior year’s been cut short,” Pinder said. “You don’t know how to react to it. It’s a little tough. It did feel good to get back in the swing of things and playing everyday felt real good.
“That makes it tougher that last year I had to sit out and the year before I missed a lot of time too because I had a broken arm. It’s been a rough couple years, but it was real fun to get back into it this year. It’s certainly tough to have it end like that.”
Pinder’s former high school teammate Weller, both key pieces of Boyertown’s 2016 PIAA championship team, had to make the tough decision to hang up his cleats one game into the season. Back problems dating back to his high school days forced him to reshirt and in 2019 and returned in February.
Weller was around during practices and continued to travel with the Kutztown team, which was 7-4 and about to start PSAC play March 13. He knew exactly how they felt when they found out their baseball careers had unexpectedly ended.
“Even though I was done playing, I feel absolutely horrible for my teammates especially, and all the other seniors who are in my teammates’ positions,” Weller said. “Whether this was your last season and you weren’t going to come back, or you were potentially going to get drafted somewhere. All those opportunities are gone now. I feel horrible. I absolutely do…I definitely know what they’re feeling.”
*** While the initial feelings of shock and disappointment are still lingering as the senior athletes try and come to grips with losing the last few months of their playing careers, time without their sports have also given them a time to reflect.
“We’re just trying to talk about all the memories we had and just kind of play it by ear and just think about everything we accomplished through our four years,” Logan Pennypacker said. “We’ve gotta be thankful for even the opportunity to play college baseball to begin with.”
For McComb this dream senior season was always a goal, but never guaranteed. She has no regrets about the way she played her last five games if they do end up being the final ones of her college career.
“That was never my spot to begin with,” McComb said. “I didn’t just expect that starting spot to be mine. Luckily, I was in a position where I played every game like it might be last. I never had that spot before. I never knew if I was going to keep it. I tried to earn it for every game.”