Strikeout Sisters —

Cathy Byrne On The Verge Of Breaking Her Sister’s Record

By Steve Bigham

It’s not often that someone breaks a high school sports record, especially a record that had previously been held by a big sister.

Usually, the athlete breaks an all-time record held by someone who played the game long before – an old-timer of sorts, who will stroll onto the court or playing field to congratulate the new record holder then hang around for a few pictures before returning to his or her seat.

But as Newtown High School senior Cathy Byrne took the pitcher’s mound this week, she did so knowing that she was on the verge of breaking Samantha Byrne’s three-year-old strikeout record. Samantha is Cathy’s 20-year-old sister, who ran ramshackle through the league during the mid-1990s, fanning nearly every would-be hitter in her path. Sam graduated in 1997 as the school’s all-time leading strikeout queen as her 599 strikeouts well surpassed the original record set by 1984 graduate Kim DeCarlo and, at the time, appeared unreachable – even to her sister, a freshman at the time, who got little playing time.

As Cathy’s mother Marcy recalls, Cathy felt she would never have a chance to break the record since she recorded just 22 strikeouts in 16 innings as a freshman. Samantha, on the other hand, was a four-year starting pitcher.

At press time Thursday morning, 18-year-old Cathy was just six strikeouts shy of setting the new school record at 600. She struck out 14 Wednesday night in a 9-1 win over Weston at Treadwell Park. In that game, she also broke her own single-season strikeout record with her 200th. Cathy was expected to break the all-time record early on Thursday night as the Nighthawks were scheduled to face Kolbe Cathedral of Bridgeport.

But as Cathy goes into her windmill windup, she does so not simply to break a record. Her team is in the midst of a late-season playoff run and she figures every strikeout she records will lead her and her teammates closer to the SWC postseason. A win over Kolbe would do it.

This week, both Cathy and Sam, who attends Radford University in Virginia, spoke about their record-breaking careers. Both credited their early days of playing softball in California for their success. Out west, the softball season is much longer and the players only get that much better.

The Byrne family moved to Newtown in 1991 and took the softball community by storm. This week, Cathy and Sam sit atop the list with a combined total of more than 1,200 K’s, having pitched in 130 of the last 141 games in Newtown High softball history.

Sibling rivalry? Not when it comes to softball, that’s for sure.

“I’m so proud of her. She’s like my best friend and she works so hard,” Sam said this week.

 While Sam, age 20, used a blazing fastball to break the record, Cathy has relied on her curve ball and pinpoint control. But, as her mom points out, it is what’s inside Cathy that has elevated her to the top.

“Cathy’s personality has a lot to do with it too. She can smile at a ball, she can pick a teammate up and put her own mistakes or a teammate’s mistake behind her and move on,” she said.

Mrs Byrne, who happens to coach the Carmel, N.Y., high school softball team, says she would love to have both Cathy and Sam on her squad. She might even bring over 16-year-old Meghan Byrne, a shortstop on this year’s junior varsity team at NHS.

 NHS second-year coach Paul LaFrancesca credited Cathy’s unbending work ethic, which includes throwing 700 pitches a week in season and 500 pitches a week out of season.

“Any player that puts in that kind of work is going to get results,” he said Thursday morning. “From a team standpoint, my favorite quote of hers is after she just missed a perfect game, a reporter asked her, ‘How do you feel about losing the perfect game?’ She said, ‘To me it was a perfect game because we won.’”

“That’s what makes her special,” Mr LaFrancesca said. “She’s almost embarrassed by her success. She doesn’t thrive on that attention. She thrives on leading the team.”

Big sister Samantha was expected to be on hand when Cathy recorded the elusive strikeout.