Westmoreland products Ashley Orischak, Olivia Kolowitz poised to help St. Francis (Pa.) softball get back to top of NEC

The St. Francis (Pa.) softball team has become accustomed to a fair amount of success in recent years. Since 2017, the Red Flash have won five Northeast Conference titles and made the same number of appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

In 2017, with Plum’s Jordan Seneca and Yough’s Kelsie Marconi among the key players, the Red Flash made history by winning the program’s first NCAA Tournament game, 8-4 over New Mexico State.

Last season was a rare miss for St. Francis. The Red Flash won the conference regular-season title with a 15-6 record but were knocked out of the NEC Tournament by LIU, which went on to win the title.

St. Francis is out to reclaim its spot atop the NEC, and a pair of Westmoreland County standouts will figure into those plans.

Senior infielder Ashley Orischak, a Hempfield grad, has taken on a more prominent role after being mostly a supporting player. Orischak appeared in 78 games (36 starts) through her first three seasons but accumulated only 79 at-bats.

This season she has started 17 of the 18 games in which she has appeared, hitting .250 (9 for 36) with a double, triple and three RBIs.

Joining her is freshman pitcher Olivia Kolowitz, a Belle Vernon grad. Kolowitz already has proven she can contribute, earning NEC Rookie of the Week for the week ending Feb. 18.

Through 19 games, Kolowitz was 1-0 with a 7.70 ERA and four strikeouts in 10 innings over six appearances. The numbers, though, don’t seem to matter as much as the experience.

“I’m thankful for practices, games, any opportunities I get,” she said. “I’m just going to try to prove myself. Being there for my team is the most important. If I can just be successful for myself and for them, it means a lot to me.”

The college game is all new to Kolowitz, but she hasn’t been the only one adapting to something different. In August, Beth Krysiak took over as Red Flash coach after predecessor Jessica O’Donnell left to pursue another opportunity.

For Orischak and the other seniors and grad students on the roster, the news of the coaching change was jarring. Particularly so late in the game.

But with the initial shock worn off, Orischak said the team has warmed to Krysiak and her methods.

“It was definitely different and kind of hard going into my senior year,” she said. “But she has definitely brought a different perspective to the game that I think fits our group this year very well. I think she is very good at coaching our playing style. We’re learning every day.”

Krysiak had her learning curve, too. When she took the job, she said, she came in with no preconceived notions about the players or their abilities.

What she did know was the roster was chock full of seasoned veterans. Rather than try to force-feed radical changes, she took stock of how St. Francis did things.

It had been, after all, pretty successful.

“I knew there was going to be some leadership there,” said Krysiak, who came to Loretto from Columbia, where she worked primarily with the pitchers. “And I was like, ‘OK. I want to see how you guys run things here. You’ve, obviously, won a lot, so, obviously, whatever is in place is working.’ ”

Orischak was one of the players Krysiak identified as a leader, calling her “an easy player for the underclassmen to follow.”

Moreover, she has given Orischak the opportunity to be more than a figurehead. She already has eclipsed her personal best for at-bats in a season.

“I think with more innings, you obviously have more opportunities, and I’ve done some good things with those,” Orischak said. “I think I have just gotten a lot more comfortable with my style of play and just with competing and being confident in myself.”

Kolowitz, meanwhile, is a work in progress, but Krysiak said she likes what she has seen and expects the freshman to start a number of games going forward.

At the Wofford Invitational, Kolowitz worked six innings over two games, giving up only one unearned run. That included throwing five shutout innings against Rhode Island for her first collegiate win.

Perhaps Kolowitz’s best quality, Krysiak said, is she presents opposing batters with a different look than veterans Rachel Marsden and Grace Vesco.

“She’s got a little different kind of spin on her ball than the rest of the staff does,” Krysiak said. “And she can hit the upper part of the zone with some consistency, so that’s going to bode really well with her in the future.”

Hitting that zone, Kolowitz said, has been the biggest adjustment. She said the college strike zone is much tougher, and pitches for which she could get called strikes in high school now are balls.

Working with Marsden and Vesco, Kolowitz said, is the best-on-the-job training she could have had. Vesco was first-team All-NEC after going 13-11 with a 3.45 ERA and 185 strikeouts in 159¹⁄₃ innings. Marsden was 13-13 with a 3.18 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 147 innings.

“I’m sure all freshmen hope to get some starts and to play,” Kolowitz said, “but we have two of the best pitchers in the NEC here. ... I’m just happy to be there and cheer for them.

“They teach me a lot in bullpens. I look at them to see how they’re successful in games in different situations … especially stressful situations. Just see how they respond.”

A week remains before the Red Flash dive into NEC play with three games at home against LeMoyne. LIU was picked by NEC coaches to defend its conference title, and St. Francis was picked second.

But, as the Red Flash well know, titles are won between the lines — not on lines of a news release.

Orischak is confident her team will have something to say about who represents the NEC in the NCAA Tournament.

“We have a good group of players and people above anything else,” she said. “We facilitate a lot of competition, but it’s healthy competition where we push each other to do better and we’re celebrating each other’s successes.

“There’s obviously a high expectation here at St. Francis, especially because of what we’ve done in the past.”