Respect and friendship, but no matchups, for Mon Valley pitching standouts
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Belle Vernon’s Bailey Parshall, winds to throw a pitch in a game against Trinity in 2016.
Observer-Reporter
Monessen’s Dana Vatakis used five different pitches to keep Frazier off balance and had nine strikeouts.
Sports rivalries can be heated, and often times develop from rivals being in close proximity.
For instance, in college sports, Duke and North Carolina are a mere 10 miles apart, and Ohio State and Michigan are less than a three-hour car ride from each other.
However, there is a local rivalry that has been competitive but has not officially happened on the playing field.
Belle Vernon High School’s Bailey Parshall and Monessen’s Dana Vatakis are two of the best softball pitchers in the state, and they take the honors when it comes to proximity as friendly rivals. They live only live 3.6 miles from one another.
The players have similar career statistics, and each made their collegiate choices early in their high school careers.
Parshall committed to Penn State before her freshman season at Belle Vernon while Vatakis committed to Robert Morris after her freshman season with the Greyhounds.
“It feels good to know that we are so close (in distance),” Vatakis said. “We definitely pay attention to each other through social media and I am happy to see her doing well.”
Parshall admitted to keeping tabs on her Mon Valley counterpart.
“It is crazy to think that in softball you usually don’t get that much success in such a small area,” she said. “I am happy to see that she is being successful and like to see how she is doing.”
Each player has watched the other the other perform when the schedules have allowed.
The Pashall and Vatakis story started almost 10 years ago when they were teammates for the Renegades U10 (ages 10-and-under) traveling spftball team.
Vatakis has stayed with the Renegades while Parshall moved on to the Pittsburgh Diamond Stars, then to Team Pennsylvania and finished up with the Ohio Outlaws.
The one thing that this friendly rivalry is missing is bragging rights.
Parshall and Vatakis have never pitched against each other in a varsity game although Monessen and Belle Vernon scrimmaged before the WPIAL playoffs during their freshman seasons.
The last time the duo pitched against each other and the score was kept was before their freshman season at the Battle in the Burgh Tournament in Cranberry Township with Parshall’s team winning the game.
Belle Vernon and Monessen were scheduled to play a nonsection game Monday, but that postponed to May 9. It will be a must-see for local softball fans simply because of the matchup in the pitching circle.
“Monessen has a good team and it would be good to go against Dana,” Parshall said. “It would be great to face a high-caliber pitcher this late in the season and it would benefit our team to face her.”
“It would be a fun and competitive game with two great pitchers facing off,” Vatakis said. “It would help us get ready for the playoffs.”
The two senior aces have dominated their respective classifications this season and work with pitching coach Jana Hudson. When you consider how dominant they have been over their four years on the softball diamond, it really is hard to fathom that they live so close together and were summer league teammates.
Over her four years, Parshall has a 66-11 record, has a miniscule 0.83 ERA and has struck out 816 out of the 1,813 batters that she has faced. That’s a whopping 45 percent who have gone down on strikes.
Vatakis, meanwhile, has 51-16 record and an ERA barely over 1.00. She has 671 career strikeouts.
This season, Parshall is 10-2 with a stunning ERA of 0.26 and 156 strikeouts in 79 innings while Vatakis is 9-1 with a 1.42 ERA and 127 strikeouts. Batters are hitting only .100 against Parshall and .159 against Vatakis.
Parshall has thrown four no-hitters, including a pair of perfect games, while Vatakis has thrown five no-hitters, including three in a four-game span this year, and one perfect game. In the fourth game in that stretch for Vatakis, the lone hit she yielded was with two outs in the last inning.
While both players have been known nationally for their pitching prowess, they also have dominated at the plate.
Heading into this season, Vatakis had a .487 career batting average with 51 extra-base hits and 78 RBI while only striking out eight times in three years. Parshall had a .472 batting average with 35 extra-base hits and 56 RBI while only striking out 27 times in three seasons.
This season, both players have contributed significantly at the plate. Vatakis has a batting average of .636 with 11 extra-base hits and 18 RBI while Parshall is hitting .581 with eight extra-base hits and seven RBI despite opponents pitching around her.
Parshall has led Belle Vernon to a pair of WPIAL titles, in 2015 and 2017, while Vatakis led Monessen to the WPIAL title game last spring and is the only pitcher in school history to win a playoff game. She has six postseason wins.
“(Bailey) has won two titles and I would like us to get one,” Vatakis said. “It would be amazing.”
“It would be so cool to see Dana and her team win a WPIAL title,” Parshall said. “I am pulling for them.”
And when Belle Vernon and Monessen finally meet next week, you can be sure that Parshall and Vatakis will have a little extra on their blazing fastballs and will want to earn local bragging rights.