The CT Softball Blog

MILFORD—For the better part of the season, Ariella DiOrio’s place was behind home plate.

She was the catcher. The one receiving pitches from star hurler Abigail Corris. The one helping guide the game. The one involved in every pitch.

Then an arm injury changed everything.

Instead of catching, DiOrio found herself in a role she never wanted. The designated player.

On Saturday, fourth-seeded Foran will matchup against seventh-seeded Woodland Regional for the Class M state championship. It’s a rematch of last year’s title tilt, a game that went 13 innings before the Lions won by a 1-0 score.

DiOrio was behind the plate for each and every one of those innings, catching all 187 of the pitches Corris threw that night.

This Saturday, she’ll be in a vastly different role, but an equally important one. Instead of touching the ball dozens of times a game, she would come to the plate three or four times and wait for her next opportunity.

For a player who prides herself on helping her team in every possible way, it wasn’t easy.

“I definitely felt like at first I was letting my team down,” DiOrio said after going 4-for-4 in Foran’s Class M semifinal victory. “I think I let that get to me.”

The junior admitted her first reaction wasn’t even to tell anyone about the injury.

“The first thing I had was, ‘Okay, I have to play through it. I have to play through it. I can’t tell anybody,’” DiOrio said.

Eventually, the pain made that impossible.

“It finally got to a point where I just couldn’t anymore,” she said. “I felt like I was a huge failure.”

For Foran coach Gina Georgetti, the decision to move DiOrio out from behind the plate had nothing to do with performance.

It had everything to do with keeping one of the Lions’ best hitters in the lineup.

“She’s a great teammate and she takes her role seriously no matter what her role is,” Georgetti said. “Because of her injury in her arm, that’s the only reason why she’s not catching.”

Georgetti said she wanted to make sure DiOrio remained a fixture in the lineup.

“The only way I was 100 percent certain that she’d be in the lineup is if we did the DP-flex,” Georgetti said. “After I explained that to her, I think she was like, ‘Okay, I totally understand and I’m going to do my job anyway.’”

And on Tuesday, she did it about as well as possible.

Diorio reached base four times, going 4-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI, helping Foran jump out to an early five-run lead against a Nonnewaug team that returned nearly its entire roster from last season.

“That was huge,” DiOrio said. “Coming into this game, I think we all felt some pressure. That five-run lead really helped ease the pressure a little bit and we kind of just reached a flow state and played our softball.”

Even while serving as the designated player, DiOrio’s thoughts are never far from the pitcher she spent years catching.

When asked about Corris pitching with a five-run lead, DiOorio smiled.

“I know she always pitches confidently,” DiOrio said. “There’s never any doubts with her.”

Then came the part that still stings.

“Being her catcher for the past few years, it’s making me sad that I can’t finish out her career with her,” DiOrio said.

The injury remains serious enough that DiOrio said an MRI could still be in her future.

For now, though, she’s found peace with her new role. And she hopes on Saturday another state championship.

The player who once worried she was letting her teammates down has discovered there is more than one way to help a team win.

“Now that I’ve kind of just been hitting, I think I’ve come back more explosive,” DiOrio said. “I’m just happy I can do anything to support my team.”

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