7 unhittable strikeout pitches in WiscNews-area high school softball (2024)

Portage senior Addison Fahey knows that confidence is key when taking the plate against elite softball pitching.

“We all have to know what we can do and know what we’re capable of doing,” Fahey said. “Obviously, the atmosphere on the field and in the dugout is a big component to all of this.”

Players have to want to face tough pitching, even when the competition has a go-to strikeout pitch. In the WiscNews area, there's no shortage of standout pitchers leaving even the most confident batters with nothing to show for a trip to the plate.

Here are seven WiscNews-area pitchers and the dominant pitches they're showcasing this season.

Beaver Dam senior Riley Czarnecki’s riseball

DeForest junior Payton Steffen, who went up against Beaver Dam pitcher Riley Czarnecki earlier this season and lost 10-0 in five innings,has gotten to know the Golden Beavers senior well after having competed in the Badger Large Conference the last three seasons and attending the same pitching camps the previous two summers.

Steffen said it's interesting going up to bat against Czarnecki because she knows she has a “really good riseball.” Czarnecki also has strong belief in her fastball and two-seamer.

“She’s definitely really good at spinning the ball and moving it around in the zone,” Steffen said. “It was definitely tough competition.”

Steffen struck out once against Czarnecki in that 10-0 shutout as Czarnecki tallied 12 strikeouts. Beaver Dam coach Abby Schmitt said that it’s fun calling a game for Czarnecki because she has so many pitches — including a fastball, two-seam fastball, changeup and a curveball.

“I feel like she pitches more on emotion,” Schmitt said. “Whatever is working for her, she’s going to keep pounding the ball into the strike zone and doing what she needs to do. It’s fun to watch.”

Cambria-Friesland sophom*ore Enya Heller’s riseball

Cambria-Friesland's Enya Heller and Horicon senior Lizzy Gibbs have become good friends after playing club softball together for multiple years.

One thing that Gibbs knows about theHilltopperssophom*ore is that not only does she have great speed on the ball, she's able to generate a lot of movement, which makes things difficult for any batter.

“I’d say probably riseball,” Gibbs said. “She has really good spin on it. It just slowly goes up. When it does, it’s like, ‘Oh, shoot, it’s too late.’ It looks like a strike at first and then it just goes up.”

Heller said with good hitters like Gibbs, she likes to work the count by moving her riseball in and out and changing the height of the ball. She will also throw in some of her other pitches— such as a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, drop-curve and changeup— to keep batters guessing.

“A lot of girls get stuck for it when I get a good low-rise on their hands,” Heller said.

Horicon senior Lizzy Gibb’s mix of riseball and curveball

Heller hates facing Gibbs because she knows that a good riseball and curveball are coming her way for strikeouts.

“I would say it’s her outside curve, jumps out,” Heller said. “She has a lot of movement and spin on it, which creates a lot of pop flies.”

Heller said Gibbs has good movement on the curveball as it spins down and out on opposing batters. Gibbs said when she’s throwing her riseball, she tries to get it up inside on the batter’s hands.

“It depends on where they stand in the box,” Gibbs said. “If they stand further back, the curveball works well because it cuts and they miss it. If they’re closer to the plate, I pitch them inside because it’s a struggle for them to hit. Then if they’re further off, I pitch out so they have to reach for it."

Lodi sophom*ore Bailey Stark’s riseball

Lodi sophom*ore Bailey Stark has 37 strikeouts through six games for the Blue Devils.

She’s got a plethora of pitches— fastball, changeup, dropball, riseball — that she uses, but the one that seems to give the opposition the most trouble is her riseball.

“It’s really hard because you’ll look at it and think, ‘Oh, I can hit that pitch,’” Fahey said. “Then you swing and you completely miss. Then it’s like, ‘Oh, shoot, I don’t even know what I’m doing up there.’”

Stark said she feels like she has “natural spin” on her riseball, which helps make the pitch more effective. Korey Stark, her father and Lodi's coach, followed it up by saying his daughter throws with a lot of velocity, but she makes it even more tricky by mixing up speeds when she sprinkles in the riseball.

“Batters have a hard time catching up, especially with that riseball,” he said. “It gets up top.”

Stark likes to use a lot of high pitches and throw to the outside, which tends to frustrate batters.

“After she gets a strike, she’s going to throw the riseball because she knows you’ll swing at it,” Fahey said.

Poynette junior Morgan Gunderson’s mix of changeup and riseball

Poynette junior Morgan Gunderson has been waiting in line for her chance to be her team's starting pitcher. The previous two seasons, she’d been the backup to Holly Lowenberg, now a freshman on Bryant & Stratton College's softball team.

The thing with Gunderson, though, is she’s admittedly not overpowering with her speed, but she does have some. She showed it with a 12-strikeout performance in an 9-2 victory over Columbus on April 8.

“She’s just solid,” Columbus’ Chloe Kelm said. “Her pitches definitely have speed and they got some spin to them. They look like they rose a little bit in quite a lot of them.”

She uses a mix of a four-seam, two-seam, changeup, riseball and a drop-curve. If you ask Kelm or Columbus teammate Emily O’Keefe what the Poynette pitcher's most difficult offerings are, it was her riseball and changeup that got the Cardinals. O’Keefe did hit a home run off Gunderson, but she also homered against Waupun pitcher Addison Braun.

“They don’t know what’s coming,” Gunderson said of opposing hitters' approach.

Poynette coach Matt Ramberg said one thing Gunderson’s been working on is placement with her pitches.

"She can move the ball,” Ramberg said of Gunderson's development.

Portage junior Ally Saloun’s deceptive phantom riseball

Portage junior Ally Saloun has pitched 38 innings with a 4-2 record for the Warriors this spring.

While her 48 strikeouts come as no surprise to those who've seen her pitch, what is surprising is the fact that she's accomplished it with really only two pitches— a fastball and changeup.

“I feel like those are the only two I really need right now,” she said.

While she's relied on those two pitches, Saloun has been able to fool batters into thinking she has other pitches. One example of that was Stoughton sophom*ore Camille Buell, who helped the Vikings beat the Warriors 15-13 in extra innings on April 9. Buell went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, but she accounted for one of 10 strikeouts Saloun recorded.

“She had good spin pitches,” Buell said. “I know she had a good riseball and I think she had a good curveball, too, that would get some of us.

“It looked like it would come right down the middle and move a little bit off the plate.”

There’s an easy explanation according to Saloun: “Sometimes when I’m hitting my high spots, I have a push on the ball that I’m able to make it look like a riseball, but it’s not really a riseball.”

Saloun is good at placing either of those pitches, and the one that truly gets strikeouts is her changeup. She worked during the offseason to get it to a speed she feels comfortable with.

“Well, there must be something moving on it,” Portage coach Connie Wampler said. “… That is something we’re trying to use to keep people off balance.

“She’s very confident in throwing it, no matter what the count is. It doesn’t matter if it’s first pitch, second pitch, up in the count, down in the count, she’s very comfortable throwing it any time.”

Waupun sophom*ore Addison Braun’s variation of the riseball

Waupun's Addison Braun is one of the area’s best when it comes to spin movement on her pitches, with the sophom*ore recording 47 strikeouts through her first five outings.

That's the offering she tends to prefer over any speed pitch because of the movement and jump on the ball, even though her fastball also is difficult to hit.

“A spin is definitely harder to hit than a speed pitch,” Braun said. “You look at the college level, a lot of them have their ball breaking a ton rather than having speed to it.”

One of her go-to strikeout pitches — and one she uses at a variety of levels —is her riseball.

“I actually hate high rise,” O’Keefe said. “They’re my least favorite pitch to hit.”

The Columbus senior said that Braun's high-rise is good with a lot of movement, but the Warriors ace also throws it fast, which can end in a strikeout.

“You practice every day, all different types of speed, but you’re never going to nail down the exact speed of a pitcher,” O’Keefe said. “It was definitely a faster speed this year and it was definitely tricky.”

Braun likes that the riseball has so many different placements in the strike zone. The low-rise is her favorite to pitch, with it starting out of the zone and coming back at the knee level. The medium-rise will start at the knee level and go up to the stomach or chest of the batter. And the high-rise starts at the chest and goes out of the zone.

“It can be difficult, especially with the umpires sometimes: ‘Is that a strike? Do I call it? Do I not?’” Braun said. “For the batters, they’ll go to try to get it and it’ll be a popup.”