The CT Softball Blog

MILFORD—There were times over the course of the season where Gina Georgetti wanted to tell her Foran Lions about the path they were on.

The talent. The team. The destiny that awaited them.

Instead, like a good coach should, she kept the focus much shorter, much tighter.

The next game. The next pitch. The next at-bat.

From the Lions’ season-opening win over Daniel Hand back on April 8, to Thursday’s 2-1 win over Cheshire in the Southern Connecticut Conference championship game, Foran has never looked too far ahead.

It was a gameplan that wound up seeing the Lions win the 2025 SCC title and doing so in (so far) undefeated fashion.

“Even from the beginning of the season, when we started on a winning streak, I tried to get them to think just about the game in front of them,” Georgetti said. “One game at a time. But as we kept winning, and the streak continued, I didn’t want the stress to get them.”

Stress? What stress?

Twenty regular season games turned into 20 straight wins for Foran, leading up to the league tournament.

The last time Foran won a league title, Georgetti was a junior on that team.

It was 2016.

Her been-there, done-that experience is why she kept the Lions focus so short-sighted.

“You can add a lot of unintentional pressure on yourself,” Georgetti said. “And I didn’t want the girls to do that.”

Her message for the team before it faced Cheshire for the title at West Haven?

“It’s just an other game,” she said.

After the game, after the 2-1 win and the trophy had been raised high over the Lions head?

“It wasn’t until after the game, on the bus, I told them how special they were,” Georgetti said. “I said, ‘You know you’re special, but this is how special you are: The last time we won was 2016. But we hadn’t even been in the (SCC) tournament since 2017 sometime.”

The Lions just missed last year’s SCC playoff by one measly win.

This year, their last league win of the season, just happened to give them the title.

Georgetti knows this is not just your run of the mill softball team, though.

It runs deeper than that. The Foran Lions are a family and for the first time in her three years at the helm, Georgetti could see how important it was for her upperclassmen to pass down that intangible to the players joining the program.

The four seniors—co-captains Julia O’Connell and Alyssa Joye and classmates Savannah Perez and Maranda Perez—have brought such strong leadership to the Lions.

The junior class, spearheaded by pitcher Abby Corris, Maya Fallon-Silva,  and Olivia Gregory, bring so many of the same qualities.

And the depth lies in the sophomore and freshman class.

Lead-off hitter Norah Bove is a sophomore. So is clean-up hitter Ariella DiOrio. The end of the line-up sees Nyla Jaser and Maddie Deldin, two on-base-percentage machines who set up the top of the line up.

And freshman Emily Speringo has shined in the outfield and the plate for much of the season.

Back in March, though, when the weather was still cold and the Lions were practicing in the gym, Georgetti noticed something different about this year’s team.

And that little something made the coach think this could be a very special season on Foran Road.

“I knew there was a chance and there were a lot of factors that made me think that and the first thing was at the tryouts,” Georgetti said.

That was the day the coaching staff would usually speak about the Foran way, the family dymnamic they were trying to build.

Truth be told, they never got to it this year.

“First day of tryouts, the coaches didn’t have to do that. The team did that,” she said. “They were like, “Hey, newcomers, we’re putting family first, giving it your all.’ We stepped back. This has never happened before. The players took charge.”

The coaches have also seen it in the dugout. When a player makes an error, it’s not the coaching staff getting to that player first.

Instead, it’s her teammates offering up support and love and words of encouragement.

“They’ve really bought in to everything we’re trying to do,” Georgetti said. “It means so much.”

Georgetti arrived back on campus three years ago when the juniors did.

“I knew the girls were special,” the coach said. “Every girl, as freshmen, I just knew. They had that twinkle in their eye and that determination to win.”

For 23 straight games this season, the Lions have found the determination to win every single one.

One trophy has been won, but Foran isn’t thinking about another one.

The Lions are short-sighted, remember?

All that matters is Monday and a first-round state tournament showdown against Bacon Academy, which was a finalist in the ECC Division 2 championship.

One pitch. One at-bat. One game.

That’s all that matters to the SCC champs right now.

Of course, that’s all that has mattered all season long.

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