Wednesday
May 8, 2024 
Freshmen softball pitchers don’t just enter the ring and throw a perfect game in their first varsity start.
They need at least five outings.
It took Palisades’ Karlye Teman five whole starts before she fired the perfecto, against Salisbury on April 5, 2022. The previous day, Teman struck out 18 in a tough 5-4 loss to Bangor.
You didn’t need to be Tom Greenwade, the legendary scout who discovered Mickey Mantle, to see that Palisades had something special brewing with Teman. The Pirates won the District 11 3A title in 2022 – their first crown in a dozen seasons – behind Teman’s 16-strikeout, two-hit shutout of Palmerton in the championship.
“After my freshman season, I definitely gained a lot of confidence with my pitching,” said Teman, now a junior. “After we won districts it gave me a confidence boost and made me realize that I really want to go to college for softball.” Already with college offers in hand, Teman will get a chance to play at the next level.
Teman’s calling card is her velocity. “We are working on improving the movement and the location,” said head coach Rick Willmott. “She’ll end up being even better.”
Palisades went 24-3 in 2023, repeating as district champ and advancing all the way to the state semifinal. While the Pirates lost an important bat in Ashley Amato, nearly the entire rest of the crew returns.
“We have a lot of returning players,” Teman pointed out. “Coach Rick has been great and I think all of the girls are responding really well to his coaching. He knows a lot of about softball and he brought a great coaching staff to the program.” Willmott replaces Jill Amato, who resigned in mid-January.
“We try and play in the moment,” Willmott said. “The most important play in softball is the next one. We move on. We do a lot of team bonding stuff because we have a lot of talent. If I can get them to fight harder for each other, that’s always a plus.”
Last spring Teman fanned 288 in 165 innings, nearly 30 more Ks than she recorded in her head-snapping freshman year. As a sophomore, Teman lowered her walks while increasing her innings from freshman season. She posted seven shutouts last season, and recorded 14 games of double-digit strikeouts.
“I practiced a lot on location and trying to hit my spots. I think confidence really did help me. This year, I’m trying to lower my walks a little bit,” Teman admitted. “They’re still kind of high.”
In last year’s PIAA quarterfinal win against North Penn-Liberty, Teman struck out nine, allowed just four base runners and homered. Palisades bats backed Teman’s arm in their 9-5 opening-round win over Conwell-Egan.
Palisades’ foray into states in 2022 was not a fond experience: a mercy rule loss to Lewisburg in the first round. Winning two PIAA games last spring was a salve to the 2022 wound.
“Our freshman year, we won districts and it was really exciting. In the first round of states, everyone was at our game and we lost so badly,” Teman recalled. “That crushed everyone’s confidence. But last year, we won a lot of games and got far into states. I think that makes us want to go farther next year.”
Teman got into softball because of her older sister. “I started at tee ball and worked my way through the rec program,” Teman remembered. “I started playing tournament softball when I was 9. I used to play basketball and soccer. I stopped after my freshman seasons because I wanted to focus more on softball.
“Around seventh grade is probably when I really wanted to keep going with softball. I started to get more challenging lessons and really started to work on pitching,” she concluded.
After a long offseason, Palisades got back into action earlier this month. The Pirates open with two Colonial games at home: Thursday against 5A Bangor and Friday against Northern Lehigh.
“Winning those (PIAA) games were exciting for everyone,” Teman shared. “Nobody thought we could get far, but getting that far made us realize how good we were.”
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