In the midst of a very tough season, the Huntington High School softball team celebrated a very special player. It was Senior Day at Blue Devil Field and Sarah Grassi was feted by her teammates.
A mainstay on the Huntington team for many years, Ms. Grassi has played many positions for the Blue Devils during her exceptional career and always carried a big bat at the plate.
A four-year starter for the Huntington varsity, Ms. Grassi captured All-League honors as a junior. She has played third base, first base, shortstop and catcher during her high school career.
“Sarah is a very strong hitter with a lot of power,” Huntington head coach John Walsh said. “She has a strong arm as a catcher.”
Huntington senior Sarah Grassi.
Ms. Grassi’s time with the Blue Devils was celebrated during a pre-game Senior Day ceremony last week. Coaches John Walsh and Jim Byrnes and the teenager’s teammates made her feel like the special person she is. They made posters commemorating her career and spoke emotionally about what she has meant to the program and to them personally.
With her family and friends standing nearby along with the parents of her teammates and players and coaches from J. Taylor Finley Middle School’s softball team, Ms. Grassi was clearly touched by the sentiments expressed prior to Huntington’s final game of the season.
“My senior day was amazing,” Ms. Grassi said. “They had been joking for a while that it was going to be awful. I really had to try to stop myself from crying, especially when they all started to speak. I am always going to remember my last game and all of my teammates that I was so lucky to have.”
Huntington has a very young team and it went through painful growing pains this spring. Ms. Grassi provided important leadership and gave the squad a spark on the field. She was the team’s only senior.
“Being on varsity for four years has been one of the biggest parts of my time at Huntington High School,” Ms. Grassi said. “It’s meant the world to me to play for the Blue Devils and quite honestly, it’s the reason I am going to try to stick with softball however I can and for as long as I can.”
The senior is headed to Hartwick College in upstate Oneonta. “It’s a lovely campus and quite honestly, I fell in love with it the second I arrived,” Ms. Grassi said. “It really felt like home and was truly inviting. It has so much for me to do. I can keep my art going and it’s possible for me even start up a softball club.”
The teenager’s four years at Huntington High School have been a special time in her life. “I was so inspired by my teachers through the years,” Ms. Grassi said. “Their ability to not only teach me in a classroom setting, but in life is a reason I felt that I could talk to them about anything. They are also the reason I have chosen to focus on becoming a social studies teacher.”
(Huntington High School sophomore Katherine DeGennaro contributed reporting to this story. She is an intern in the district’s office of public information.)
