Apr 13, 2020 3 min read

It was a season Michele Moeller had circled on her calendar.

The longtime Canon-McMillan softball coach had every reason – 18 to be exact – of why she was looking forward to 2020 being special.

The Big Macs returned all 18 players, not losing a single player to graduation from last year’s 12-win WPIAL Class 6A playoff team.

With everybody back, the Big Macs were locked and loaded and maybe most important, they were hungry.

“We felt primed and ready to go,” Moeller said. “We were two days away from leaving for our trip to North Carolina. We know the quality of teams we get to play down there and were excited at seeing great things. It’s a lost opportunity. I don’t even know if I can put it into words.”

The coronavirus pandemic turned the Big Macs’ promising season into one that won’t happen at all. The PIAA decided last Thursday that the spring sports season was canceled because of the dangers surrounding COVID-19. The PIAA had suspended the spring season, along with the winter sports championships, for nearly a month with the hope of trying to salvage something.

“I don’t know if it was just me hanging onto hope but I think today has been the gut punch,” Moeller said last Thursday when the decision was announced. “Even though in the back of my mind I knew it was going to happen, you were still holding out hope for something. It’s a part of the kids’ story that gets lost.”

A story Moeller and Canon-McMillan were hoping to write that ended with a WPIAL championship, which would have been the program’s first since winning back-to-back titles with dominant teams in 2012 and 2013.

Last year, the Big Macs averaged 11 runs per game, scored double-digit run totals in 10 of 16 regular season games and hadn’t scored fewer than nine runs in more than a month as they entered the Class 6A playoffs as the No. 2 seed.

That playoff run ended prematurely as they stranded 10 runners and went 1-for-6 with the bases loaded in an 8-4 loss to upset-minded Seneca Valley in the opening round.

“I don’t forget,” Moeller said of the game that knocked C-M out of the postseason. “We all sat down and discussed that game. It was a mental breakdown all around for us. We didn’t bring it to the table. We had structured competition-based settings into our practices this year to feel that pressure. That one baffled us last year.”

Instead of playing in the WPIAL championship, Moeller and her team took the short drive to neighboring Peters Township to watch it.

The only two seniors on this year’s team – Lindsay Schmidt and Sydney Senay – were planning on powering the Big Macs’ lineup from their No. 3 and 4 spots in the lineup. Schmidt hit .529 with 26 RBI and scored 22 runs last season. Senay finished the season batting .489 and driving in 24 runs from the cleanup spot.

“I’ve been doing this for so long now,” Moeller said. “What you see when they become seniors, the confidence level is just unparalleled.”

Five other regular returners – juniors Olivia Ulam, Grace Higgins, Elika Mowery and Elli Kotar and sophomore Taylor Eckles – all hit over .350 last season.

“We are definitely talented enough to do this,” Moeller remembers her team saying after watching the championship game. “That’s the part that breaks my heart.”