SEYMOUR—There are plenty of teams out there boasting some incredibly good pitchers this season.
Some of those programs even have an ace in the hole, somebody to turn to when the going gets tough for the designated starter.
The Seymour High softball team has an even deeper and winning hand, if you will. The Wildcats are armed with not one, or even two, but three bonafide aces every time they step on the field.
No matter which name first-year Seymour coach Samantha Rossetti writes on her line-up card, the Wildcats have walked off the field as winners.
Senior Skylar Barton and juniors Leah Parkosewich and Cassidy Marcincyzk are getting the job done each time one of them toes the rubber.
It has been a three-pronged approach that has Seymour out to a 7-0 start this season as the Wildcats head into a gauntlet week of tough games this week.
The Wildcats play at Naugatuck (3-2) tonight before hosting three-time defending state champ Woodland Regional (6-0) on Wednesday and Foran (5-0) on Saturday.
“I knew there were a couple of pitchers when I got hired and then when I saw them throw it was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be a fun year,’” Rossetti said. “I can’t go wrong. I can’t make a bad decision.”
Three pitchers for a finite number of innings might cause some friction on some teams, but for these Wildcats hurlers, they know they are a team within a team, and each is on the same page as each other as well as their fellow infielders and outfielders.
It’s all about winning and chasing the glory days of past Seymour teams, who have won 12 state championships, the last coming in 2021.
“They’ve all been super supportive of each other,” Rossetti said. “It’s been so great to see.”
The coach considers multiple options when it comes to who gets the start. These include: Who the opponent is, how many times Seymour will play said opponent this year, and even the weather (“one of them pitches better in cold weather than the others,” Rossetti said).
“I kind of mix it together and hope for the best,” Rosetti said. “They’ve been a really good team out there together.”
The numbers have been impressive.
Barton, a senior, is 4-0 with one no-hitter and two shutouts; Marcinczyk is 2-0 with a 0.58 ERA, one perfect game and two shutouts; and Parkosewich is 1-0 with a shutout, as well.
Seymour has outscored its opponents 109-16 this season
“I think overall it’s great to be so well-rounded and to be able to catch for all three of them is pretty amazing,” said Seymour catcher Kylie Testone, a four-year starter. “For me, to see them all work equally hard and put 110 percent into their pitching is so great. They’re so great to work with.”
Parkosewich is coming off an elbow injury that severely limited her time on the field in 2024 as a sophomore. She’s back now, healthy and happy to contribute while making the pitching staff that much deeper.
“It’s so different because when you’re off for the whole season, you just feel like you’re not helping,” she said. “You know what I mean? You’re sitting on the bench and it’s like, ‘What am I doing?’” So, this year I went into it all about this has to be a good year for me and I have to go out there and make a statement.”
All three pitchers are just different enough to throw opponents off-kilter, too. While all three can throw hard, each has unique spin-pitch strengths that will keep batters uncomfortable in the box.
Barton, as the lone senior pitcher, is a de facto leader, and loves working with her fellow pitchers.
Earlier this season, she recorded her 300th career strikeout—many of which came early in her career when she was Seymour’s only pitcher.
“As a senior, I definitely wanted to make this my best season,” Barton said. “And having the two other pitchers makes it so there’s a lot less pressure on me. It’s like, oh, if I screw up, I know someone’s there to help me. I’m not going to be trapped in this. And they’re good pitchers, too, so it’s like I can count on them and I can trust them. Trust is important, too.”
The best feeling a pitcher can have when they are struggling in the circle is to know there is help on the bench. When Seymour’s pitchers look over, there are multiple choices, too.
“It takes away a huge stress that is on a lot of pitchers,” Parkosewich said. “If you’re out there and you’re struggling and you look in the dugout and you have nobody that can come in, that’s stressful. You feel like you have to this all by myself. But knowing I have people who come in is a huge and I consider them all my friends. It’s not like we’re competing. We’re just supporting each other.”
Marcincyzk said it was a privilege to be able to pitch alongside her teammates and to be ready to help out when her name is called.
“It’s an amazing support system,” Marcincyzk said. “We all have our different talents and we’re all able to just work together to be just dynamic team as a group. And I know that if I’m on the mound and I’m struggling, Leah and Skylar can be put in and they will do perfectly fine. I can count on my pitchers. I don’t have to worry about it. We can all thrive in game situations together.”
They are Seymour’s three aces, and more often than not, they are a winning hand for the Wildcats this season.
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