Softball's Surprise Hit The Bombers make it to the World Series after nabbing the regional championship.
	Each year from 1994 to 1997 the Ithaca College softball team advanced to the championship game of the NCAA northeast regional playoffs. After the Bombers were eliminated from last spring’s playoffs in the semifinal round, Coach Deb Pallozzi set a return trip to the title game as one of the goals for the 1999 season. With just one starter graduating from the 1998 team, the goal looked to be attainable. Well, Ithaca didn’t just reach the NCAA playoffs for the sixth straight season and reach the championship game for the fifth time in six years. The Bombers swept through the regional playoffs (held at Ithaca’s Kostrinsky Field) and earned the program’s third trip to the Division III World Series. "I thought we might be able to make a run at the regional title this year," said Pallozzi, "but we hit a stretch of five straight losses early in the season when we weren’t competing well against some regionally ranked teams. I was very pleased with the way we turned it around after that." (Ithaca won 19 of 22 games over the next month.) Record-setting seasons from players like junior pitcher Robin Bimson and sophomore first baseman Laura Remia paced the Bombers, who posted a regular-season record of 26-11. Ithaca was the top seed in the NCAA’s northeast region and was picked to host the regional playoffs for the third time in the past five years. Wins over Western Connecticut (2-0) and Keene State (4-3 in eight innings) put the Bombers in the championship game. In the finals, Ithaca was paired with Keene State for a second straight day, and the result was an 11-5 Bomber win that wrapped up the regional title. For Ithaca’s three seniors — third baseman Julie McGraw, catcher Sharon Orchard, and shortstop Cheryl Wah (pictured) — it was a repeat of the team’s performance in 1996, their freshman year, when the Bombers hosted and won the regional championship. (While the atmosphere was just as festive this time around, the weather was quite different: the 1996 tournament was hit by a freak May snowstorm, while this year’s games were played in 80-degree sunshine.) A berth in the Division III finals came next, and the Bombers’ trip to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was both shorter than they would have liked and far too long. Ithaca was knocked out of the double-elimination tournament after losing to Chapman (led by Stephanie Carew, daughter of baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew, the Panthers finished as national runner-up) and Alma, but the team wound up spending six days in Wisconsin because of rain delays, travel arrangement snafus, and a traffic accident in downtown Eau Claire that knocked out electrical power at the stadium in the middle of the Ithaca-Alma game. "I was certainly glad we were among the 8 teams to make it that far, out of more than 300 teams playing softball," said Pallozzi. "But I had hoped to win a few more games once we got there, because we had the talent. It gives us something to improve on when we make it there the next time." Broken Records Predictably, the team earned a number of honors and awards. Remia and Wah became the first Bomber teammates in 13 years to earn all-American honors. Both were second-team choices. Remia broke her own school record with 15 home runs and will enter her junior season ranking 14th in Division III in career homers, while Wah wound up her career as Ithaca’s all-time leader in hits, runs, doubles, and triples. Wah also earned a spot on the GTE academic all-American team; she and junior designated hitter Kristin Muenzen were first-team choices, making Ithaca the only team with two representatives on the first team. Wah, a sport management major, will be attending graduate school as a teaching assistant at the University of North Carolina. Muenzen spent the summer interning with Major League Baseball in New York City. Bimson became the first Bomber pitcher to win 20 games in a season and earned spots on the northeast region all-star team and the all- tournament team at the regional playoffs (she threw every inning of Ithaca’s three wins). The awards weren’t limited to the players, either. The National Coaches Association’s award for regional coaching staff of the year went to Pallozzi and assistant coaches Kristi Clark ’98, Sherry Dobbs, and Mike Swartz ’97.