Robbinsville aiming for 6th straight district crown
When it comes to District 12 softball, everything starts and ends with Robbinsville.
The girls from R’ville have dominated the district since bursting onto the scene in 2007. Since then they have won nine of the last 10 district titles, a run that includes a Little League Softball World Series championship in 2014.
“One thing is always tradition,” said manager Chris Pacifico, who leads this edition of the program as it looks for a sixth consecutive crown. “Most of them have been playing softball since they were seven. We have all 12-yearolds on the team. They’ve been practicing hard, and from top to bottom there’s good fielding, good pitching and good hitting.”
Robbinsville features four returning players from last year’s team — Vanessa Sabol, Kailey Pacifico, Sofia Papa and Gwen Wells — that made it to the LLWS.
With that experience and the addition of some other talented players, Pacifico thinks this group can repeat that feat.
“The difference from this team to our other teams, we have 13 girls that maybe don’t have the same skillset as past Robbinsville (teams), but the will and desire and practice structure has been great,” the manager said.
Robbinsville begins play on Thursday night against tournament host Bordentown at Northern Community Park. “We don’t have anybody who is going to put the ball over the fence, but we have girls who are going to put the bat on the ball and we don’t have many strikeouts,” Pacifico said. “We make good contact and have some speed.”
They also have tradition working on their side.
“Having examples in front of them over the years and them having gone to watch those games since they were five years old has transformed into them being dedicated and working hard,” Pacifico said.
“I don’t think we had any girls that had sisters on the teams but a few of them had brothers who played in little league. Even though they might not have had real sisters who played, there’s sisterhood in a sense. The one thing that you see is that even the teams from either year will come and talk to the other girls and encourage them.”