Family Ties on
Little Flower’s softball team

By Tim Godfrey
For the Times

The Little Flower softball team has been stuck in The Twilight Zone all season. One day they put up 10 runs in a win, the next day they can’t manage to score a run.
In four of their five losses this season, they have managed to score just three runs . . . combined.
But for two members of the Sentinels’ squad, it has been an entirely different television classic. For these two young ladies, it has been All in the Family, without Archie or Meathead.
The Benson cousins patrol the hot corners for Little Flower head softball coach Harvey Maddock.
Alyssa, a senior, plays first base; Melissa, a junior, plays third.
"They’re a lot of fun. The whole team is," said Maddock. "Alyssa is one of my co-captains and she’s having one heck of a year for a senior. Melissa is another one that has come a long way. She’s a real good athlete, period."
The two have actually been playing organized sports together for years, regularly occupying the same field together, so this is nothing new to them. In fact, they kind of planned it this way.
"I came first and loved the school, so I talked it up to Melissa," Alyssa said.
"We both wanted to play (soccer and softball), and Alyssa loved the school, told me about it, so I came over and shadowed and loved it too," Melissa added.
It has worked out wonderfully so far, not only for Alyssa and Melissa, but also for coach Maddock. The cousins Benson have helped him to fill holes in his infield left by graduating seniors from years past.
Last year Maddock needed someone to step in and play third base. Looking around, he realized he had very few options. So he decided to take a look at a sophomore shortstop and see what she could do at third sack.
She did pretty well, considering that she hasn’t left there since.
"We put Melissa at third base as a sophomore," Maddock said. "I just threw her there at the hot corner and that kid has done an outstanding job. She’s one of the only kids I have ever seen not really flinch on a grounder. She’s right there, she doesn’t back off of nothing."
Then this year, after one of the team’s premier pitchers and first baseman graduated, Maddock needed someone to play first base.
Enter Alyssa.
"At the beginning of the year I asked her what position she played with her tournament team, and she said first base. So I played her there. After that game she was my starting first baseman," Maddock said.
Alyssa has also stepped forward this year as one of the team’s leaders. Since being selected as a co-captain, she has taken right over. Maddock calls her "leader of the gang" — she’ll approach him about different things and they’ll talk it over.
The similarities end there, however. At least athletically.
Even though both play multiple sports for Little Flower, both prefer a different one for different reasons.
Alyssa, who once preferred soccer to softball, quickly changed that perception when she started to become more and more involved in higher-level teams and tournaments.
"Softball is just more my sport," Alyssa said. "When I saw how much more intense softball is, that’s what put me over."
Melissa, on the other hand, is more interested in the soccer pitch than the softball diamond. That’s nothing against softball, it is just how things have always been for her.
"Since I was four I’ve been playing and loved soccer," Melissa said. "I like to be more active."
As one would assume, their families are very excited that both ladies are playing varsity sports, but they are even more elated that the two have been able to share the same field, in soccer and softball, for three years.
Unfortunately, though, that is about to end.
Alyssa is set to graduate next month and will attend Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh in the fall. She hasn’t decided yet whether she is going to try to walk on to either the soccer or softball teams, but it wouldn’t be a stretch, either.
Melissa, meanwhile, has just begun the process of looking into colleges. She still has a full year to sort through everything that goes with such a big decision. She’ll have a tougher time deciding than most, though.
"I’ve been looking at schools, but it’s most likely going to be for soccer, so we’ll see," Melissa said.
So, as coach Maddock tries to figure out how to get his current episode of The Twilight Zone to end happily, the cousins Benson are wrapping up another classic of their own. ••