Two for the show
Many in Mike Marino’s position would freak out and understandably so.
Then again, Trinity’s softball coach doesn’t expect to hear much chatter when there’s a ball hit between shortstop and second base. Olivia Gray and Madison Hornak are in control, Marino figures.
Even if they don’t waste time discussing such mundane topics.
“Sometimes you’d like to believe they’re calling for it,” Marino said. “But anything that’s hit, they seem to be in the right position.”
Gray and Hornak are best friends, having known each other since they were 2 years old, and their velcro-like closeness has not only bolstered Trinity up the middle but carried the Hillers to a 6-0 start, a surprise even to the super set of sophomores.
They went to preschool together. One recruited the other one to play soccer last fall. They work the same summer job. And now they’re keeping Trinity’s scorekeeper awfully busy.
“Liv and I get along so well that it’s easy to work with her in softball, in school, wherever,” Hornak said.
Often that means silently communicating, which would drive just over 99 percent of softball coaches crazy.
The exception, of course, being Marino.
“I always know she’s going to be there for me at second to turn a double play,” Gray said. “Or if we’re trying to do a fake throw to first, I always know that she’s going to be there. We don’t even call a ball going up the middle because we know who’s going to get it.”
In 22 at-bats, the leadoff-hitting Gray has 10 hits – six for extra bases – for a batting average of .455 and a slugging percentage of .818. Hornak has been nearly perfect turning over the lineup as the team’s No. 9 hitter with hits in 10 of 12 at-bats (.833). She has also walked five times for an on-base percentage of .882.
“They’re steady,” Marino said. “They don’t seem to panic.
“For being sophomores, you can tell that it’s not new to them. That’s the thing that carries over. I think it brings something new to the whole team when you have that demeanor of going out and taking care of business.”
Gray and Hornak went to preschool together at Gwens Montessori School and have played softball together for the past seven years.
They work together at the Washington Park Pool’s concession stand and are mostly inseparable both inside of school and out.
When Trinity’s soccer program was looking to beef up numbers before this past season, Hornak recruited her best friend, knowing she was athletic. Never mind Gray stopped playing the sport when she was 5.
“Liv’s an athlete,” Hornak said. “She came out this year and wound up starting varsity. She’s doing pretty well.”
Gray and Hornak helped Trinity to an 8-7 win over reigning WPIAL Class AAA champion Montour to open the season on April 5. The Hillers proved they’re for real by winning at West Allegheny, 9-7, a day later.
Victories over Moon, South Fayette, Carrick and Ringgold have vaulted Trinity to the top of Section 2-AAA, matching a 6-0 start the Hillers enjoyed in 2010, the year after they reached the WPIAL Class AAA final.
“I don’t know where other people put us,” Marino said of preseason prognostications. “I’m not sure anyone had us anywhere near the top. But I think the coaching staff and the players had that quiet confidence that we could make some hay early. We thought if we could get out of the gate, and improve every game, we would see the results.”
For Gray and Hornak, there appears to be another pressing issue outside of reaching the WPIAL playoffs: This summer Hornak won’t be playing softball (for Team Pennsylvania, the pair’s travel team) or soccer together, this out of Hornak’s desire for some rest.
Gray and her family have already invited Hornak to tag along for road trips, maybe even play a game or two. But there’s no hiding that it’s going to be weird for Gray to look to her left and see someone other than Hornak at second base.
“We’ve been together so long, so I’ll see her still,” Gray said. “It won’t affect our friendship at all. It’s going to be a little different with her not playing second. I guess I’ll just have to adapt to that.”