This story originally appeared in the July 21 edition of the Weekly LINK Reader. To see these stories first, subscribe here.
Leadoff-hitting shortstop Ella Steczynski brought back a lot of fun, sepia-toned memories for Dixie Heights coach Sarah Osborne last month. Steczynski was named Northern Kentucky Softball Coaches Association Division I player of the year 18 years after the coach was similarly honored.
“Ella brought that recognition back to Dixie Heights,” Osborne said. “We’ve had some of the same experiences.”
To say the least.
Osborne thought of Steczynski’s humble beginnings with the team as a seventh-grade emergency catcher. She pondered just how far her only 2023 senior had come to be considered the best among her softball peers. As one of many coincidences would have it, Osborne forged her way at Dixie Heights as a catcher.
“It’s been hard for me to put a seventh-grader in the starting lineup. We want them to get that hunger first,” Osborne said. “But our catcher got hurt when Ella was a seventh-grader, and I put Ella back there. She was tiny back then, going up against an Ohio team with freshmen and up. She wound up making a play at the plate.
“As a former catcher, it was a scary moment, but she made a great defensive play. When we needed Maggie Fields in the outfield, we moved her from shortstop and put Ella at short. The rest is history.”
A history very similar to Osborne’s.
The coach hearkened back to a time when she was considered the area’s best when known as Sarah Gronefeld.
“I had a lot of fun when we were successful back when I was a player,” said Osborne, a 2005 Dixie Heights graduate. “And we had a lot of fun this season.”
Steczynski’s stellar senior year is nearly without peer in the program’s rich history. You have to go all the way back to when Osborne was a senior for a similarly seismic all-around season at Dixie Heights.
Steczynski hit .473 and led the Colonels with 56 runs scored during a remarkably efficient effort for the 9th Region tournament runners-up. She had 15 stolen bases in 15 attempts and struck out twice in 130 plate appearances while putting together a .538 on-base percentage. She made one fielding error in 176 chances.
“She was the foundation of our team, and we built around her,” Osborne said. “When Ella got on base, the chances that we were going to win increased substantially. That’s why we put her at lead-off. She hit third as a junior.”
Steczynski’s previous-season batting averages were .457 as a junior and a rare .531 mark as a sophomore.
Osborne hit .423 as a junior for the 2005 9th region champion Colonels and .541 as a sophomore, becoming the first player in Dixie Heights history to hit at least .500 in a season.
Both former catchers hit over .500 as sophomores? What are the chances of that happening? Well, the similarities don’t end there.
Gronefeld, the first player in Dixie Heights history named first-team all-state in 2004 and 2005, was named first-team all-Northern Kentucky three times.
Steczynski also was named first-team all-Northern Kentucky three times.
There’s more.
While Steczynski was gearing up for softball in the spring, she was playing for the Dixie Heights girls basketball team during the winter. She was named a Northern Kentucky Girls Basketball Coaches Association Division I all-star as a senior.
Osborne was also a two-sport standout. While bashing the ball on the diamond for Dixie, Osborne was also splashing a path in the pool for the Colonels’ successful swimming team.
It’s almost as though Steczynski and Osborne lived in parallel universes 18 years apart.
Osborne continued her softball career at a smaller nearby Kentucky school when she went on to play at Georgetown College.
Steczynski is heading to smaller nearby Transylvania University to play softball.
“She’s a great athlete, obviously, playing well in both softball and basketball. But she works very hard. And she’s a smart athlete,” Osborne said of Steczynski. “She has a special connection with basketball because of her dad (Dixie girls basketball coach Joel Steczynski), but I feel like softball has always been her sport. She’s a winner in both.”
Here’s a comment former Colonels softball coach Dean Fookes made about Osborne in 2005 when Osborne was named a LaRosas’s MVP.
“Sarah is a champion. Her work ethic in the classroom as well as the athletic field is second to none,” Fookes said. “She has a passion for the fast-pitch game that few other players experience.”
Those are very similar coach appraisals, 18 years apart.
But Osborne insists Ella Steczynski is not Osborne reincarnated. Steczynski’s height is 5 feet, 8 inches. Osborne is 5-3.
“She’s a basketball player,” Osborne said. “We did have the conversation among the softball coaches that Ella could also play basketball at Transy, if she wanted to. I don’t think I could have done that.”