Hard Work Pays Dividends For Prince, Frewsburg

When the Prince family moved from Arizona to their Harrington Road home in Frewsburg about 7 years ago, their nearby garage was in rough shape.

“It was kind of falling down when we moved here,” said Brianne Prince, the oldest child of Tim and Kim Prince.

Within two years, Brianne, a budding softball phenom even before she was a teenager, had become a one-person wrecking crew.

“I just threw at the garage,” she said. “By seventh or eighth grade, I put a hole through the wall.”

That left father Tim no choice. “I tore down the garage.” he said.

Four years later, Brianne is now tearing up her high school opponents.

Entering her fifth year on the Frewsburg Central School varsity team. Prince has compiled some gaudy numbers while leading the Bears to three straight Section 6 championships and one Far West Regional title.

Consider the following from Prince File:

• Has a 64-22 career record, including 58-11 in the last three seasons.
• Has 700 career strikeouts.
• Has eight no-hitters to her credit.
• Last season was 20-3 struck out 231 in 166 innings, had two no-hitters, six two-hitters and a one-hitter

“Since the time she’s been in sixth or seventh grade she’s worked all year.” Frewsburg coach Jon Blanchard said. “It’s been a goal of hers to be the best she can be. It’s paid off for her. She has a lot of natural ability, but, more importantly, she has a great work ethic.”

Ironically, Prince didn’t exactly embrace the art of the windmill delivery at first. In fact, as a sixth grader, she walked in five runs during an all-star game.

“I was in tears,” she said, “I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’”

But with encouragement from her father, Prince stuck with it.

“The control started coming together, “Tim Prince said. “Over the years, she’s learned you can’t throw just the fastball. She has a nice curveball and change-up, and her best ball is a rise-ball. If you hit, it’s usually a pop-up.”

In eighth grade, Prince was a varsity pitcher on a team that lost plenty of one-run games. But the Bears won a Section 6 Class D championship her freshman and sophomore seasons, and followed that up with a Class C sectional title and a berth in the state’s Final Four last year.

The highlight of last season was the Bears’ 1-0 victory in the Far West Regional over unbeaten Wellsville, which was riding a 58-game winning streak. Frewsburg was no-hit, but Prince allowed just two hits in arguably the best softball game an area team has ever played.

“It was so intense, I couldn’t even tell if I was pitching faster than any other game,” said Prince, whose pitches can exceed 60 miles per hour, “but people were telling me that I was.”

Prince, who will attend St Bonaventure in the fall, followed that impressive performance by tossing a two-hitter in the state semifinals, but the Bears lost, 1-0.

“After the state game, I wasn’t mad or sad. I was happy,” Prince said, “I knew that, hopefully, we’d be back this year. But no matter what happens we made it further then a lot of teams.”

On paper, however, the Bears figure to be the team to beat again in Class C. With eight returning starters, Blanchard appears to have another good shot at an exceptional season.

Besides Prince the other returning starters are seniors Janelle Anderson (3b) and Lorinda Petrantsky (cf); juniors Anna Lee (1b) Missy Stanford (ss) and Kim Skoglund (If); and sophomores Tenneil Yesky (c) and Allison Johnson (2b).

This year even as the season began the whole squad seems really focused,” Blanchard said. “Their work ethic from last year to this year has improved. They’re willing to what they have to do get it done.”

Nevertheless, Blanchard said the Bears are taking nothing for granted.

“You have to take it one game at a time,” he said. “…It takes a lot of luck. It just doesn’t happen that easily.”