Seton Hall softball wins Big East Tournament as Passaic Valley grad stars

If you’re wondering how Seton Hall University’s softball program rose from the dregs to become Big East champions in just two years, here’s an illuminating story.

Taylor Hill was coming off a sensational debut season that earned 2022 Big East Freshman of the Year honors when head coach Angie Churchill called the Little Falls native into her office for what could have been a hard discussion.

“I know your heart is at shortstop,” Churchill told her. “But we need you in the outfield.”

Hill had been a shortstop all her life, but now she was being asked to trade the glamorous position for right field to make way for an incoming freshman. It’s a rough analogy, but imagine a college basketball coach asking an all-league point guard to move to the wing for an unproven rookie.

Hill, whose esprit de corps was honed as a three-sport athlete at Passaic Valley High School, didn’t sprint to the transfer portal.

“Whatever the team needs,” she responded. “Whatever we need to get to where we are now.”

Where they are now is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005. Hill is hitting .357, second-best on the team, and leads the Pirates in runs (47), doubles (16) and total bases (104) while adding seven home runs and 31 RBIs. She has committed zero errors. On Saturday, after the Hall throttled Villanova to earn the program’s first Big East Tournament crown in 18 years, Hill was named to the All-Tournament team.

“It’s incredible,” Hill said of the journey. “In our hearts, I think we all knew we could do this. From the start we did everything as hard as we could – every lift, every practice, everything.”

Churchill had them all-in, and that made all the difference.

“We wanted more than anything to make her proud,” Hill said.

A three-sport competitor

They must have been the only ones who saw this coming. In June of 2021 Churchill took over a program that had just won nine games and finished next-to-last in the Big East. She’d built a winner at Hartford even as the athletics department there was deescalating for a move down to Division 3. She’d originally recruited Hill to play there, and the flip to Seton Hall was a no-brainer just a couple of months before the start of her college career.

“Closer to home, my parents could come to all the games, it worked out perfectly,” Hill said. “I definitely lucked out.”

Churchill was a three-sport high school athlete in Illinois, and perhaps she saw a similar competitive fire in Hill, who played soccer, basketball and softball at Passaic Valley (as a point guard she scored more than 1,000 points in high school).

“I always played as many sports as I could,” Hill said. “I put my heart and soul into every season. It works – you get to be part of different teams, experience different teammates and coaches, and you’re not using the same muscles all the time.”

Repetitive motion injury is a problem for teenagers, but Hill’s been healthy the whole way, and the upside to her finally focusing on one sport at the next level was obvious. All that said, the Pirates were pretty far off everyone’s radar after finishing 20-23 overall and 9-14 in the Big East last spring, good for sixth place.

Heading into this season, they were picked to finish seventh in the league’s preseason coaches’ poll. Suffice it to say that came up a lot as they’ve furnished a 42-16 record, including 18-6 in Big East action. Still, after finishing tied for second in the regular season, there was just one route to the NCAA Tournament – winning the double-elimination conference tourney at UConn. In softball, the Big East is a one-bid league (more on that in a bit).

It took a furious rally against DePaul (the Hall trailed by four runs with four outs left) an extra-innings squeaker over Villanova, a 6-4 takedown of host and regular-season champ UConn and then Saturday’s 6-1 hammering of Nova. Pitcher Kelsey Carr shut the Wildcats down in the final. Senior Shelby Smith earned Most Outstanding Player honors after batting .615 with 11 RBIs at the plate and winning three games as a pitcher. Hill hit .467 on the week with five runs scored.

“The atmosphere was insane,” Hill said. “The support from the school, fans and the other athletes has been incredible.”

Something else to prove

The team is gathering at Bunny’s Sports Bar in South Orange Sunday evening for a watch party when the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced at 7 p.m. on ESPN2. They’ll be doing so with something to prove because within the college softball community, the northeast is in the shadow of the southern powers.

“The southern schools that can play softball year-round get all the recognition, as they should, but it’s very cool to be able to say that you’re from New Jersey, playing at a New Jersey school, and our team is doing big things,” said Hill, one of two New Jerseyans in the Hall’s lineup along with catcher Hannah Alexander out of Northern Burlington High. “We’ve been talking about that since the last out (Saturday) – we’re fired up and ready to represent in the NCAA Tournament.”

A physical therapy major, Hill has two part-time jobs lined up in the field for this summer. She’s building a resume and now has something else noteworthy to put on there.

Big East champion.

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Seton Hall softball wins Big East as Little Falls' Taylor Hill stars