CN Softball year in review: Awards, news and notes to wrap the 2025 season
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It was another championship campaign in the Courier News area this high school softball season, featuring big wins, phenomenal individual performances and teams reaching heights not seen this century.
Here’s a look back, including some more awards, some news, notes on the season that was.
Team of the Year
The Hunterdon Central High School softball team’s goals went beyond, simply, winning. In fact, it could be said, winning a state title was just a means to an end.
The Red Devils finished 25-3, taking a share of the Skyland Conference Delaware Division title and grabbing the program’s first Group 4 crown since 2011. It was the culmination of four years of hard work for a squad made up of eight senior starters, working toward a goal they had come close to over the past three years, coming up short in the sectional finals each time.
Now, with the state championship in hand the way senior ace Emily Van Cleef tells it, the fact this group got to play together until the last possible game of their senior season might be an even bigger deal.
“We started as early as we could, with going to Florida during the preseason, and we, literally, took it to the very last game that we could take it,” said Van Cleef, who joined her classmate at prom in full uniform and with championship trophy in hand, arriving late to the dance just a couple hours after the Group 4 final ended. “That bond is something truly special and I think we just all wanted to spend the most time as possible with each other, and we did that by going (all the way through) states.”
It started with a preseason trip to Orlando, Florida, a trip the team raised money for with car washes, canning events, and anything else they could think of. They played six games down south and took a team trip to Universal, sharing hotel rooms, strengthening bonds and developing a chemistry rarely seen on a high school softball team.
Shortstop Zoe Totaro is the elder statesmen, joining the starting lineup midway through her freshman season, with Van Cleef getting a lot of second-half at-bats at DH, even hitting two home runs in the Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex Tournament final in 2022.
Third baseman Grace Geisler joined the lineup their sophomore season, with Cassie Stallwood, who has been Central’s catcher the past two years, also getting regular at-bats in 2023, mostly at DP.
By last season, all but one of this year’s seniors was starting, including first baseman Julia Duggan and outfielders Maitland Halsted and Paige Seemon. Sara Czarnecki filled out the 12th-grade octet in the starting lineup this year, after just a handful of at-bats as a junior.
Junior second baseman Jessica Yip, who Van Cleef called the team’s mom, despite her being younger than most of her teammates, rounded out the defense this year, with sophomore Cambria Tucker getting most of the time at DH and also having a big impact on the success, including delivering the game-winning hit in the state final.
The chemistry, the familiarity and the singular focus certainly showed for a team that, pretty much, spent every moment together for three months, from Florida through state.
“This whole season, there hasn’t been any drama, which is almost unheard of for a team,” said Van Cleef, her team also featuring sophomore and backup pitcher Riley Cooke, and juniors Isabella Icangelo and Lindsey O’Donnell off the bench. “Being able to constantly mesh with each and work with each other, and push each other to be the best student-athletes we can be — not just messing around and goofing off — was something incredible, and I think that’s what did drive us to the state finals. We, literally, spent every single day together — seven days a week, after practice, after games, we were always with each other. And I think having that special bond made us want to take it to the end.”
“This team knew from the beginning that this was something they could accomplish this year,” coach Kelly Rieder said. “Not only did we tell them, but it was something they could tell within themselves. The confidence they had, the experience they had, and just knowing they had the ability.”
Here’s to the winners
While Hunterdon Central celebrated a state championship, there was plenty of other hardware won on the diamonds this spring.
The Red Devils not only won Group 4 for the first time in 14 years, they snapped a string of four straight trips to the sectional finals without a victory, claiming the Central 4 crown. Watchung Hills also won a section, taking North 2 Group 4 for the second straight year and third time in four seasons, while Bound Brook won Central Group 1, its first sectional championship since 1999.
Immaculata took down its second straight Somerset County Tournament championship, despite entering play as the No. 6 seed, while Scotch Plains-Fanwood parlayed last year’s first trip to the Union County final since 2001, by winning the crown for the first time since 1977.
The Skyland Conference featured five divisional champs, as Watchung Hills and Hunterdon Central shared the Delaware, splitting a pair of 1-0 conference games, while Pingry ran the table in the Raritan. Delaware Valley also went undefeated in division play to claim the Valley, while Somerville won the Mountain Division crown.
Freshmen of the Year
Central Jersey is blessed with an annual influx of young talent, and while this year was certainly no different, with ninth-graders all over the area having big impacts for their varsity teams, two freshmen reached heights rarely seen by players in their class.
Immaculata left-hander Maddie Falvey and Watchung Hills outfielder Leila Romero both had a huge hand in their teams’ championship seasons and should prove crucial to how those programs do over the next three seasons.
They are the first two freshmen to make First-Team All-Areas since Watchung Hills’ Sophia Cicchetti in 2017, and Falvey is the first pitcher to do it since Delaware Valley’s Kasey Kiesewetter in 2009.
Falvey was highly touted coming into the year, and while she certainly had her moments early on, her most impressive performances came when the games got bigger.
That was never truer than in the Somerset County Tournament final, as the Spartans rookie stepped up huge against Watchung Hills, her top-seeded hometown school, which had beaten her twice during the regular season. She took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, finishing with a one-hit shutout, allowing just one walk and striking out eight as sixth-seeded Immaculata claimed its second straight crown.
She finished with a 15-7 record and a 2.32 ERA, while serving as a big bat in the middle of the lineup, batting .408 with six doubles, a triple, a homer and 23 RBIs.
Romero not only brought a standout glove to left field for the Warriors, but was a key part of the offense, batting second, and she certainly proved key, hitting .461 with 11 doubles, a triple, a home run and 26 RBIs, scoring 19 runs and drawing 17 walks.
She sure chose a good spot to smack her first varsity homer, doing it during a win over Morris Knolls in the state Group 4 semifinals.
All-freshman team
Falvey and Romero weren’t the only ninth-graders to have big impacts this season. Here’s a look at all of the area’s top freshmen, by position.
P: Maddie Faley, Immaculata
C: Olivia Buthmann-Sinoy, Phillipsburg
1B: Kelly Ross, Ridge
INF: Sophia Crum, Mount St. Mary
INF: Darby Revok, Westfield
3B: Ava Figalora, Delaware Valley
OF: Hailey Cuyun, Ridge
OF: Ally Gardner, Governor Livingston
OF: Leila Romero, Watchung Hills
HONORABLE MENTION: Haley Brown, 3B, South Hunterdon; Amanda Ciser, OF, Bridgewater Raritan; Gabby Gomez, P, Pingry; Riley Liskowacki, SS, Delaware Valley; Balina Pardo, C, Union Catholic; Maggie Quinn, P, Governor Livingston.
Staff writer Simeon Pincus has been covering NJ sports since 1997, and has been on the softball beat since 1999. He can be reached at CourierSoftball@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @SimeonPincus
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ CN Softball: Awards, news and notes to wrap the 2025 season
