Belle Vernon grad Bailey Parshall enjoys breakthrough season as Penn State's ace

She is a left-handed flamethrower who fanned nearly 1,000 batters in her high school softball career at Belle Vernon, where the Leopards rode her talents to three WPIAL championships before seeing her off to the next level at Penn State.

As a college senior this season, she hurled the fifth perfect game in the history of the Nittany Lions program by dominating Florida International during a 7-0 Penn State victory on Feb. 18 in Miami.

On a weak-hitting club — Penn State ranked last in the Big Ten Conference in batting average (.242) and on-base percentage (.319) — Bailey Parshall managed to shine, earning first-team all-region honors by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.

She also became the first Penn State pitcher in 17 years to be named to the all-Big Ten first team.

“I’m definitely proud of myself,” Parshall said. “I feel extremely close with my team. In high school, people care about individual success. That role has switched for me now. It’s more rewarding when our team wins a big game.”

While Penn State (32-22, 13-10 Big Ten) in coach Clarisa Crowell’s second season in “Happy Valley” made a marked improvement over its 2021 record of 7-34 overall, the Nittany Lions were bounced from the Big Ten Tournament in the quarterfinals and watched their streak of NCAA Tournament misses swell to 11 years.

The chief reason for the team’s moderate success this year can be traced to the dominance of Parshall in the circle, where she posted a 22-9 record with a 1.68 ERA and nine shutouts in 212 ¹⁄₃ innings.

Opponents batted just .199 against her.

“When I started with Bailey, she was about 7 years old,” longtime Belle Vernon coach Tom Rodriguez said. “I started catching her, but it wasn’t long before I couldn’t catch the ball. She was well advanced for her age. I knew if she kept working hard that she would make an impact.”

Among the highlights of Parshall’s season was a Big Ten co-pitcher of the week selection March 21.

Parshall earned the honor after a 4-0 week that included a victory over Pitt.

At that point in the season, Parshall was off to a record-breaking start, going 10-3 with a 1.44 ERA.

She was the first Penn State player to win the award since she did it in March 2020. Prior to that, nobody in the program had won a weekly award of any kind since April 2016.

So it goes for Parshall, a sometimes hard-luck pitcher whose 2.82 ERA in 2021 defied her 1-14 record.

“The coaching change definitely was an adjustment for everybody,” she said, adding that covid-19 protocols “made it more difficult. We barely got to see the new coaches.”

Crowell, who came to Penn State before the start of the 2021 season as the winningest softball coach at Miami (Ohio), succeeded Amanda Lehotak and immediately acknowledged Parshall’s immense potential.

“I would say from last year to this year is so much better,” Parshall said. “I credit the success this year to the culture that is being developed here. It’s been easy to hold each other accountable for how we play and that’s a direct result of the influence the coaches are having on us.”

Parshall, who this year pitched 20 complete games, including nine shutouts, has earned a degree in health policy and administration and was studying for a master’s degree in management and organizational leadership. She said she’s interested in becoming a hospital or nursing home administrator.

But first, she’s planning to return to the Penn State softball team next season, taking advantage of a lost year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Coming here has been very humbling for me,” Parshall said. “The mindset and caliber is so different than in high school. I dominated in high school, but I’ve grown inside and outside the sport in college.”

She said she’ll likely again be seeing at least two familiar faces in the crowds at most games.

“My dad has never missed any of my games,” Parshall said.

Kelly Parshall, incidentally, did miss one game last season when he and wife Debbie remained behind to attend a family funeral.

“This comment will kind of sum it up: It’s your child. Unless something crazy is happening, we will be there,” said Kelly Parshall, a Pennsylvania state constable, who was an offensive lineman at Lock Haven and a member of the Bald Eagles’ lone PSAC championship football team in 1979.

He said he agonized with his wife and daughter over an elbow injury that sidelined Bailey Parshall for part of the 2021 season. She sustained the injury by banging it on her hip during her windup.

“It was creating some nerve issues,” said Kelly Parshall, a 1977 Belle Vernon graduate. “She did some physical therapy and when she came back, she wore a white sleeve with a pad on the inside to protect that elbow.”

Eventually, Parshall adjusted her mechanics in an effort to avoid making contact with her hip.

Rodriguez, the Belle Vernon coach of 21 seasons, remembered the impact of Bailey Parshall’s presence at his games as though it was yesterday. On a recent Sunday, he sat quietly and listened with amazement as she spoke to his team at its annual banquet at Cedarbrook Golf Club in Rostraver.

“She came and gave a talk. She was good,” Rodriguez said. “Those kids sat and listened to every word she had to say about all the things she did growing up to get to where she is now. It was like they were listening to a star.”

When, in fact, he imagined, they really were.