EF’s Larcinese hits 500 strikeouts in rout of Ringgold

By JOSE NEGRON
jnegron@yourmvi.com

Elizabeth Forward pitcher Kailey Larcinese faced just two batters in a road game against Ringgold Wednesday.

That’s all it took for her to make history.

Larcinese struck out the first two batters of the game to reach the 500-strikeout mark in her career as the Warriors rolled to a 19-0 Section 2-4A victory over the Rams in five innings.

During Harry Rutherford’s 12-year tenure as EF head coach, Larcinese is the first pitcher to reach 500 strikeouts. What makes the feat even more impressive is the fact that the Towson recruit was able to do it without having played her junior season, which was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s rare and it was nice to give her the opportunity to do this in her last regular season game,” Rutherford said. “We wanted her to get to 500 and then we wanted to give her a break after throwing three days in a row in cold weather. We didn’t want to push her heading into the playoffs, but at the same time you don’t wanna take the ball out of her hands when she has a milestone like that sitting in front of her.”

Larcinese has had quite the senior campaign.

She finished the regular season with 158 strikeouts and just 13 walks in 88 2/3 innings. In 16 starts, she sported a minuscule 0.40 ERA, allowing just seven runs (five earned). The only team to score of Larcinese and the Warriors in section play this season was second-place West Mifflin.

“She’s worked really hard over this last year on her changeup, which is just devastating when she throws it,” Rutherford said of Larcinese, who has expanded her arsenal of pitches over the course of her high school career.

“She’s had really good command over this last year, and it’s made it really easy for me to call a game and for her to pitch it.”

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.