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SOFTBALL: Penn Charter Seniors Anastasia Lewis and Maddie Solow Reflect on the Reality of a Cancelled Season and Share Words of Encouragement

By Ed Morrone (contributor: Angela DelVecchio), 04/17/20, 4:00PM EDT

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PHILADELPHIA--Like every other high school spring season student-athlete in the Philadelphia area, William Penn Charter senior softball players and co-captains Anastasia Lewis and Maddie Solow fully expected to be out there every day, either for practice or a game. For seniors especially, this global coronavirus pandemic hit hard. They have waited all year to play, and now, due to no fault of their own, this spring season has come to a halt.

Lewis, a starting pitcher, and Solow (Ursinus), a centerfielder who also plays first baseman and pitcher, were looking forward to defending the Quakers’ Inter-Ac and PAISAA championships from 2019. With only two players graduating from last year’s squad, PC had an exceptionally strong returning nucleus.

Philadelphia Sports Digest originally visited the Quakers softball practice on March 12 to chat with Lewis and Solow about the upcoming season. Within days, everything had changed. A couple of weeks later and with the spring season in major doubt, PSD caught up with the Penn Charter duo for a new phone interview to find out how they and the team were coping with the fact that a global health crisis may have ended their softball careers earlier than either had anticipated.

Philadelphia Sports Digest: Obviously, much has changed in the last several weeks since we last spoke. As the possibility of no spring season becomes more and more real, how are you and the Penn Charter softball program coming to grips with that?

Anastasia Lewis: I’ve been doing a lot of reflection the last couple of weeks. We’ve been in talks with our coach (Doc Mittica) just trying to assess 1) where everyone’s heads are at, and 2) where do the league, school and administration go from here? Each passing day, the chances of playing become slimmer and slimmer. Coming off last season, I think more than anything, we are grateful as seniors that we had something especially nice last year and will always have those memories if we don’t get to play. Honestly, it’s devastating that we can’t be together to see each other and give one another hugs, but at the same time we all have our loved ones and the people we care about. In a broader sense, we’re thankful and grateful for what we do have. We’re happy and healthy, and hopefully, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. If we don’t have a season or it’s cut short, I hope I can see the team one more time and thank them for being such an amazing supportive family. I’ve told the girls to stay optimistic, at the very least we’re hoping for an end-of-year party to see each other one more time before we have to abruptly pass on the reins.

Maddie Solow: It’s definitely been up and down for me. I’ve been trying to stay optimistic that there will be a season, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to do so. As the numbers and deaths rise with the virus, there are stricter rules for staying inside. As days go by, we’ve all had time to think about this kind of stuff, and for me personally, I’ve come to terms with it. I definitely feel like I put my all out on that field when I had the chance to play, and I’m grateful for that because right now, that’s all that I have. I’m proud of myself and what I accomplished in the program. If there’s no season, of course I’ll be disappointed, but we’ll still have the memories to live off.

PSD: Obviously, you accomplished so much as a team, and when we talked three weeks ago, it really felt like this team believed it had what it took to repeat as Inter-Ac and PAISAA champions. Has that been the most difficult part of this, potentially leaving PC with unfinished business?

Solow: Unfinished business, I honestly have none. I want to play and go out again and have fun with my teammates, but as far as unfinished business, I realize the accomplishments I’ve made as a player and we’ve made as a program. I have to recognize that, and I can’t just look at this season as a bummer. Of course, it’s a bummer not playing, but I choose to look at the accomplishments we did share together.


Penn Charter seniors Maddie Solow (r) and Anastasia Lewis pose together during practice on March 12th. (photo by Ed Morrone for PSD).

It’s not unfinished business to me, because we did our business and did it well. Softball wise, we did it, but what kind of sucks is not seeing your great friends every day in the hallway at school or out on the field. Even stuff outside of softball, like we used to have 7 a.m. team breakfasts where someone would bring bagels and we would all talk before the day started. We found different ways to bond outside of softball, and that’s what sucks the most, to be honest with you. Because of softball, we created such great bonds that will never go away, and I’m very grateful that we’re still able to stay close and connected even if it is more difficult right now.

Lewis: Overall, I’m learning to be more grateful for the little things. I’d love to be out on the field with the team maintaining a high-level game of the past several years. Mostly I just miss the team and the girls who drove me absolutely crazy sometimes, but that was what I looked forward to the most after a long academic day. To not have that in person, it definitely feels like something is missing from my life. I miss human contact and being able to shake someone’s hand, but I’m also grateful for the phone calls and video chats, just to see people’s faces. I’m counting my blessings that myself and my family are all healthy, and as far as I’m aware my friends are OK. So as much as it can suck being holed up at home, you find ways to pass the time. There’s only so much of my family that I can take (laughs). I love them but when you see the same people all the time, you miss the humor and joy that friends and other family bring. When it’s stripped away, you realize how crucial that is just to make it through the day.

PSD: Maddie, you already know where you’ll be playing your college softball, while for you, Anastasia, you haven’t made your decision yet. How has this unexpected break affected the recruiting process for you or as a whole?

Lewis: My recruitment path has been lucky. I’m still undecided, but it’s more because I’m still waiting on the papers and talking to my family about a decision. The nice thing for us seniors is that this hit, and everything shut down, everything was solidified in terms of applications and conversations with interested coaches. It’s more impactful for the current juniors, because now they are in the thick of it with it usually ramping up now and into the summer. For me, I’m lucky in that I am deciding between a couple of amazing places. I’ve been lucky enough to go to those places, stay over, take tours and meet everyone. It was in the plan to go back, reassess and talk to coaches to finalize my decision, which is clearly no longer an option. The colleges are working hard to provide virtual resources to those who have been admitted and are still interested, but there has been somewhat of a hindrance as far as access to certain places.

Solow: Anastasia and I have been through the recruiting process, and it’s not easy to get recruited in softball as the popularity of sports like lacrosse really take over. You have to really put yourself out there to send emails to coaches and work hard to stay on top of the whole process. This whole wrench in the road is really difficult for the juniors, but they are smart and athletic and have such great personalities, so after all this is over, I still don’t think they’ll have any more trouble than the average person. These are charismatic girls that I have such joy in playing with, and while I don’t think it will be a huge struggle for the ones who want to play in college, I do feel for them, because man, looking back on that process, it was rough. I think positive things will come in the future just because those girls have such great attitudes and personalities.

PSD: What kinds of softball things have you been trying to do to stay sharp while being unable to practice and play games for your school?

Lewis: I’ve been working with our coach to try to get stuff sent out to the team, because sitting on your couch and eating all the potato chips isn’t going to accomplish much. This whole thing happened when we were on spring break, which they extended to a second week.

Anastasia Lewis lauds her team after winning 2019 PAISAA Championship (video-Dan McCarty for PSD)

Game-winning out by PC's senior Abby Manion (Univ. of Penn) during the 2019 PAISAA Championship vs. Academy of Notre Dame (video: Jim Beaver for PSD).

Maddie Sollow sums up her team's character after the 2019 State Championship game (video: Dan McCarty for PSD).

Once the third week hit, it was like, OK, we ought to all be back into doing softball stuff. I’ve talked with the trainers to make sure the muscle memory is still there, and I’m very lucky to have my dad work with me. He’s caught for me over the years, and I am blessed with a lot of space where I live. The opportunities we do get to go outside get the muscles and blood flowing, and I’ve occasionally thrown in my backyard. I’ve tried to get outside as much as I can just to keep up the repertoire that I normally try to maintain.

Solow: Unfortunately, I don’t have that space that Anastasia has where I live, which has made things a little more difficult. But I have gone outside on walks to get exercise, and I like to ride my bike in the park near my house. Softball-wise, the mental mentality of a game is so important, so for me that’s what I try to work on. I like to watch film of past games to see what I can improve on when I do get back to playing, so I’ve been focusing on that. We played a bunch of games in Tennessee last year, so I’ve enjoyed watching those and looking at my swing to see where I can improve. Mentally, I just want to make sure I’m prepared when it’s time to get back into it.

PSD: How about non-softball stuff…what are you both doing to stay sane? Watching a lot of Netflix like the rest of us?

Lewis: I don’t even have a Netflix account, so I’ve been forcing myself to do other things. I’ve been blessed with opportunities to explore other mediums in life. I’m a musician and play the bass, so I’ve been working on quarantine music productions and FaceTiming with my friends and band to try to create some online virtual performances. I’ve been going on nice long walks with my family in our neighborhood and doing things like working in our garden, drawing or messing around on the computer. I’m a very creative, hands-on person so I’m finding things to do just for the sake of doing them. I do feel lucky to have other facets of life to fall back on and explore.

Solow: It’s been rough, really difficult just because I’m starting to get ants in my pants. I want to be outside hanging with my friends. My mom is an accountant at an emergency services hospital, and she isn’t home often, so a lot of the time it’s just me and my dad. We watch a lot of Netflix and movies, and my dad likes to play video games, so I enjoy watching him do that. My parents and I did a puzzle that took us seven hours to finish! But what else are we going to do, you know? It’s just the three of us, and we’re good at finding things to do that are so random and outside the box. You’ve got to figure out what to do with what you have.

PSD: The one thing this pandemic cannot take away from you are the memories you’ve made within the program during the last three years., You’ll both always have something to look back on and be proud of, what would you like to say about that?

Lewis: The memories are what I’m living off. Grasping this new reality is finally starting to settle in for me. The idea of it doesn’t feel real, especially the time in which it landed in my life. Trying to grapple with the fact that it is real and happening and there’s not much any of us can do is the worst part about it. So, it does make me grateful for what has happened in previous years and having all of those wonderful memories. I’ll call up teammates and we’ll just reminisce, and a lot of that is about stuff that didn’t even happen on a softball field. Even if we sadly never play together as a team again, those memories will be there forever. I’m grateful to have been a part of that, as well as to have the technology to reach out to them and still connect. It’s more gratitude than anything else, mixed in with a little optimism. At the least I’m hoping to have an in-person graduation with my fellow seniors, which is still two months away. That seems to still be a possibility, even if everything else goes to waste. There’s a little light at the end of the tunnel that maybe that can still happen. We’ll keep a bit of optimism for the future.

Solow: I’m not taking things for granted. As awful and horrible as this situation is, when it is over, and hopefully it is soon, I think it will great learning experience. It will teach us not to take things for granted and go outside the box as much as you can. Push yourself to limits you didn’t know you could now that the world has abruptly stopped like this. In my lifetime, nothing drastic like this has happened to the world. I was born around 9/11, so I didn’t experience that. For me, this whole virus thing is a catastrophe that I feel like I can learn from.

But I do want to say: If this is it and the end of high school softball, I want to thank everyone who believed in me. If you knocked on my door five or six years ago telling me I’d be at a place like Penn Charter, I wouldn’t have believed you. I just want to thank all the people who believed in me and thought I had the extra talent to go the distance when I didn’t think it myself. PC as a community is such a great support system. I really felt that throughout these four years and I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to be surrounded by such great people and personalities. Some people don’t get that opportunity, so I’m beyond grateful for my teachers, coaches, peers, all of them, because they allowed me to be my authentic self. When I didn’t have confidence in myself, they gave it to me. I’ll be forever grateful for that and I’ll take it with me for rest of my life. It shaped me into who I am today, and I think I will be this person for the rest of my life because of Penn Charter and the opportunities it gave me. 

Game Highlights in PC's 7-1 victory over Episcopal Academy 2019 season. (video by Angelise Stuhl for PSD).

(Lewis pitched six scoreless innings and struck out nine in route to a 7-1 victory over host Episcopal Academy. A big third inning proved to be the difference maker for the Quakers. Solow doubled to left field, which was then followed by a single from Lewis. Then senior Abby Quinn came up to bat, totally handling the ball to deep right field for an in-the-park homerun to put Penn Charter up 5-0.)

On April 9th, PA Governor Tom Wolf made the announcement that all schools will remain closed for the remainder of the Academic Year. It became certain that the spring sports season had also come to an end. 

PSD. Even though you will not be together on the field as a team this season, what words of encouragement would you like to offer your teammates that will continue to strengthen that bond going forward. 

Lewis: I would simply say keep doing what we have always been doing. Our team was lucky to have had a great season last year. We are also lucky in that we create strong bonds with each other. I have faith that each of them will continue to do amazing things not only as individuals but as a unified team. I for one will miss these girls and am sorry that our season got cut short, but I am eternally grateful to have been able to work, play, and laugh alongside them. Our team mottos capture who we are. Whether it be Cult-ure or Mudita (meaning "self-less joy"), our team goes beyond just a group of girls and really captures another kind of family. I know that together this team will move forward and continue to be an amazing group of girls that are unstoppable.

Solow: All I can say to them is just keep moving. You have to look at this situation as a long break. Just come back and be refreshed for the next season. They are so tough and talented enough that they will be able to spring back into a new season and so much success. They have to believe in themselves! That’s the biggest thing!! Each and every one of them have so much talent that I don’t think they know about yet. A huge word is confidence. They have to believe in themselves. And they have each other. We created such a great family! This team is one big family and that’s definitely a word they have to remember. You can only have fun and succeed if you are a family!! Even when you don’t succeed, having Fun with family is so important!

Penn Charter 2019 PAISAA Champions (photo by Jim Beaver for PSD).