After being named Colonial States Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year, Cabrini College sophomore Jess Giordano took a down-to-earth approach to the award.
“It’s an honor that other coaches saw me as Pitcher of the Year, but at the end of the day I’m just doing what I’ve done since I was 9,” Giordano said.
It was a humble assessment, but truthful. Ever since pitching for the Hamilton Girls Softball Association All-Stars, travel softball and Steinert High, Giordano has been a standout in the circle. It’s what she expects from herself and for herself, and nothing more.
She never expects accolades.
“I’ve been pitching and playing in important games ever since I can remember,” she said. “I think back to the (Babe Ruth) World Series when I was just 11 and 12 years old pitching in high stress situations, then moving on to my county tournament and state games in high school, and the two conference championships in my years at Cabrini.”
Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, both those conference finals resulted in losses, but that could not take away from Giordano’s sterling season. In the circle, she went 14-7 with a 2.59 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 135.2 innings. She had three shutouts and shared in another.
“I thought Jess had a great year,” said junior outfielder Amber Dietrich, Giordano’s lifetime teammate through youth, high school and college. “She didn’t really get the best opportunity last year. She came in this year and really did the job and carried our team through some pretty tough games. Although we fell short she gave it her all every time. She helped us a lot this season, both hitting and pitching.”
Giordano was indeed a dual threat, as she batted .352 with nine doubles, four homers, 28 RBI and 18 runs scored. That didn’t happen by accident.
Giordano went out with her dad, John, last summer and hit two or three times a week in order to reach a goal of hitting when she pitched, and being a designated hitter when she didn’t pitch.
“I started off being able to hit for myself when I pitched, and I was batting in the six or seven spot,” Giordano said. “I was very happy with just that.”
Her coach, Sammy Thompson, was even happier with it, as she eventually made Giordano the DH for whoever pitched the second game of doubleheaders.
“Then she moved me to the clean-up spot in the lineup,” Giordano said. “When I was hitting, my thoughts were to just remember all the hard work I had put in and to be the best I could be so that I could keep the spot I had worked so incredibly hard for.”
Coming out of Steinert, Giordano was looking for a school with smaller classes “so I could build relationships with my professors. I wanted a smaller school so I could really feel the sense of unity among my peers throughout the campus.” She also wanted a balance between academics and athletics and felt that Cabrini was the perfect fit.
Dietrich—who made second-team All-Conference this year after overcoming a slow start to hit .276 with seven doubles, four homers, 17 RBI and 30 runs scored—was there a year before Giordano. It was the only year in their entire careers they hadn’t played together. Though Dietrich didn’t influence Giordano’s choice of school, Giordano admits she never would have heard of Cabrini had it not been for Dietrich.
“It was exciting to be able to play with her again,” Dietrich said. “We’ve been together since we were 11 years old, so it was really exciting to have her back on the field with me. Having her family and my family at the games, it was like old times.”
Giordano’s first season was slightly different than the “old times,” however, as her appearances were somewhat limited. She started 12 of the 16 games she appeared in, going 9-6 with a 3.75 earned run average, 48 strikeouts and a CSAC-leading two saves. She also hit .313 in 32 at-bats.
“She really wasn’t given her opportunity,” Dietrich said. “We had two pitchers from last year that pitched all the time.”
Giordano handled the situation maturely.
“While not getting as many starts as I may have liked, I understand that not all freshmen just get a go at their starting position right off the bat,” she said. “It was frustrating, but I took the frustration and turned it into motivation to want to be better than I was and to be the best player I could be for the team playing behind me.”
On the bright side, coach Mitchell Kline began to see Giordano’s ability and started to throw her more frequently toward the end of the season.
“I took my chances and ran with them,” Giordano said.
Unfortunate circumstances occurred in the fall, however, when Kline was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. Thompson took over as interim head coach and saw the same potential that Kline was beginning to notice.
“I once again took my chance and ran with it,” said Giordano, who credited her dad and her catcher, Sarah Beckner, for fine-tuning her pitches this year. “Knowing I had a starting spot in the lineup was certainly a confidence booster. It seemed contagious throughout the team. My teammates saw the confidence I had in myself and my performances on the field and we collectively grew to have more and more confidence in one another. I believe our team’s confidence in each other is what led us to be so cohesively successful.”
Cabrini finished 25-18 overall and 19-3 in conference play. The team dropped the CSAC final to Neumann, 9-4, but qualified for the ECAC South Tournament for the first time in program history. The Cavaliers lost both its games by one run.
Dietrich felt that Giordano is still the same pitcher she was in high school, but with a little more confidence and a better spin on the ball.
“We know when she’s pitching she gets the job done,” Dietrich said. “It takes a little ease off the hitters knowing she’ll come out and finish and inning strong. She always keeps her calm and composure. You can tell she doesn’t really get frazzled easy.”
In fact, the most taken aback she got all year, was when she heard about her Pitcher of the Year honor.
“I didn’t even realize the awards were coming out,” she said. “No one spoke of them, and I hadn’t received an award last year so it wasn’t on my mind. I received a few congratulatory texts from my teammates and my coach. One of my responses to one of my teammates was, ‘Congrats for what? I just rolled out of bed!’ The award was a complete surprise.”
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