1985 Softball Team Won Stockton’s First Postseason Title

When the 1985 Stockton softball team won the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III title, defeating rival Salisbury State to take home the trophy, it also became the first Stockton team ever to win a championship in any sport. 

Christine Ross, a senior, was the catcher and team captain. She rallied the team when it was down with words and actions. Ross, unfortunately, passed away in July 2017, but her memory and fighting spirit lives on.

“One thing that strikes me about the team, it had a range of talent,” said Eileen O’Malley, a junior short stop on the 1985 team. “We had freshmen playing. We had seniors. Some had been on the team for four years, some for two years. We had a variety of people coming together with different levels of maturity and a variety of talents."

"You had really good hitters, you had great pitchers. That year our catcher, Christine Ross, she was like the heart and soul of the team and she commanded it from the backstop. Just a very scrappy team and her nickname was ‘Scrapper’.’’ We could be down by 10 runs and she’d say, ‘come on you guys, we can do it. Chip away.’ “

Val Julien, an assistant coach on that team, remembers it the same way. That Stockton team, coached by the late Dot Hirschfeld, set a then school-record with 21 victories in a season, going 21-9-1.

“Chris ‘Scrapper’ Ross, she was the catcher and she commanded that team, without question,” said Julien, who was the Stockton head softball coach for 29 years after three years as an assistant and is now athletic facilities and special activities coordinator at Stockton. She earned a 539-511-2 career record as head coach. 

“Abby (Roessler) was the first baseman,” Julien added. “They were tremendous together. Chris was a tremendous catcher and just a real field general. She conducted the defense for sure and was a very good hitter…. And Dot was a tremendous individual. She’d give you the shirt off her back. She was a tremendous coach and a tremendous woman.”

Stockton’s 1985 team was filled with high academic achievers. It held one of the highest academic averages for sports teams at Stockton, had a high percentage of Who’s Who inductees – including Nancy Juestrich, Roessler and Ross – and had multiple scholar/honors athletes. 

The 1985 team set multiple records over the course of the season on its way to the championship. They rallied from a three-run deficit to defeat Salisbury State 4-3 in the championship game, with great pitching and great hitting leading the way once again. Sophomore Gayle Varady was the winning pitcher.

The host Ospreys moved into the finals with a pair of 2-0 victories over Ursinus and Salisbury State to advance to the showdown with Salisbury State. Varady still holds the individual season record for ERA (0.74, just 12 earned runs in 113.2 innings pitched). The team ERA was 0.80, also a team season record.

“This is really a terrific feeling for us,” Hirschfeld told the Press of Atlantic City at the time. She compiled an 81-54-1 record in five seasons as head coach. “We’ve suffered through some lean years and to build a program it takes a while.”

Roessler, who had starred at nearby Atlantic City High School, was a senior on the team and a scholar/honors player. She now lives in nearby Smithville and keeps in touch with many of her former teammates. 

“We were the first of any team to win a championship, we were the pioneer championship team of any sport, male or female,” said Roessler, who has advocated to get the team into the Stockton Athletics Hall of Fame. “Dot Hirschfeld, our coach, was the first winning coach of any sport. While she was alive, I really wanted to get her in the hall of fame. Christine was our captain. She was an amazing person.”

Maureen Getcliffe, a junior ace pitcher on that 1985 team, transferred to Stockton from Monmouth. She felt the Stockton softball program was formidable and she already knew many of the players.

“We had a lot of individual talent that had to work together as a team,” said Getcliffe who lives in Asbury Park. “I played third base and pitched. I did whatever the team needed. It was really Gayle and I that kind of did the pitcher thing. Part of the team’s success was the ability to be very fluid and to have complementary skill sets where you could swap players out in different positions. It helped that we had great coaches, Dot and Val. We really practiced a lot. We did a lot of things on our own to get into great conditioning…Major commitment, major dedication."

Getcliffe, also a scholars/honors athlete, held down a fulltime job with McDonald’s while in school. After a 33-year-career with the McDonald’s corporation, she retired at 49 about eight years ago. She ended up in the McDonald’s headquarters offices, serving as the Dean of Hamburger University, responsible for 14,000 McDonald’s in the U.S.

“We all still get together,” she said of her teammates. “When we lost Chris, she died at 50. We raised money. We tried to make it easier for the girls that are playing softball. We did that in Chris’ memory. To know that we helped, put a bar out there, raised the bar but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

In September 2017, former teammates, friends and family of Ross signed a gift agreement, establishing a Stockton University Foundation fund in Ross’s member. The Christine "Scrapper" Ross '85 Memorial Fund supports the Stockton softball program and has raised $7,500 since its inception.

Roessler said the team had so much heart and unity.

“I think that was a big part of it,” said Roessler, who was a licensed clinical social worker and recently retired after 35 years in healthcare. “We really liked each other. We still gather. We gather around Chris’ spirit and raise money for the team. When we were the champions, unlike today, the team played right there on campus in like the heart of the campus. It’s not there anymore. We didn’t have a dugout. We had this aluminum bench.

“We rode in these old Stockton vans. We raised money by selling peanut brittle and raffles to go to spring training. We really didn’t have anything and I think that’s why we wanted to give back to the team even though they probably have way more than we ever had. We were all very involved in academics and there was a lot of success for the players after graduation as well.”

Julien said many of the players held down jobs and successfully balanced their schoolwork with softball. The long trips down South helped bond the team even more.

“We stuffed them all in three vans and just drove down there,” Julien said. “It was crazy. Those were some of the most memorable times. Some of the most character-building moments where you know you’ve got to pull together if you’re driving that long with folks. They had a lot of patience and a lot of fun.”

“They just really fought to be part of this team and fought to be part of that first championship…In 1985, it was a different world in women’s sports,” Julien said. “They were just some of the most dedicated young ladies that I’d ever come across.”

O’Malley, a director of risk management at Vanguard who lives outside of Philadelphia, agrees.

“I don’t think we started the year thinking ‘we can do this,’ “ O’Malley said. “…I think as we got closer to the end, people didn’t want to go home without the trophy. It was fantastic. Everything fell into place and everybody pulled out everything they had in terms of good hitting, tremendous pitching. Those couple of years, ‘84, ‘85 and ‘86, were really good pitching years.

“The players trusted each other and believed in each other and that made a difference, I think, on the field and off,” O’Malley said. “That could’ve been part of the secret sauce.”