In the 2024 softball season, Northwestern Lehigh went 22-5, won the Colonial League, and finished second in District 11 4A and reached the state semifinals.
This spring, the Tigers returned the entire starting lineup except third baseman Sage Toman and shortstop Izzy Akelaitis.
“Everybody knew that the key to our season was how we would replace those spots,” Northwestern Lehigh coach Kate Farber said.
But two freshmen, Natalie Conner and Samantha Boyer, entered the scene on the left side of the infield.
Boyer did a solid job at third base, hitting .253, and had an RBI triple in the state semifinal against Valley View.
Conner thrived at shortstop. She hit over .463, scored 30 runs, drove in 37, collected 17 extra-base hits, and struck out just five times in 106 plate appearances. She also played quality defense at arguably the most demanding position on the field.
She fit into the cleanup spot and served as a confident, poised, steady presence that belied her age.
For all of those reasons and more, Conner is The Morning Call’s Softball Rookie of the Year for 2025.
Farber didn’t know anything about Conner until last summer when members of her coaching staff saw her play in a travel-team tournament and she put on an offensive display.
“They told me we’re going to be just fine at shortstop,” Farber said. “And they were right.”
Before she could get to spring practice, Conner made her athletic debut on the Tigers’ girls basketball team. She helped Northwestern Lehigh go 24-5, averaging 15.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.0 steals, and 2.6 assists per game. She was a third-team Morning Call all-area selection.
By the time the Tigers’ basketball season ended on March 8 with a state playoff loss to Neumann-Goretti, practice was well underway for the softball team.
Conner didn’t miss a beat in leaving the hardwood for the diamond. In the third game of her career, a 12-1 win over Bangor on March 25, she went 3-for-4 with a double, triple, and four RBIs.
“I just came into the season with confidence,” Conner said. “I know Izzy was a really accomplished shortstop, and I had some big shoes to fill, but I thought I could do the job. It was the same role I had in basketball. I was a starter, and I was hoping I’d be a starter in softball as well. It wasn’t a huge adjustment for me.”
Conner sets her goals high. She wanted to be a .500 hitter in softball, and she’s determined to reach 1,000 points in basketball, maybe as early as next winter as a sophomore.
“Getting 1,000 as a sophomore would be a really big statement,” she said. “I think I had 455 as a freshman, so hopefully I can get it done next year and then work my way up to being the all-time scorer. That’s just something I look forward to doing.”
Conner doesn’t see one sport getting in the way of the other. She takes pride in being a two-sport and even though there is no time off in between basketball and softball, she says one sport helps the other.
“I feel like some of the things with basketball help me with softball,” she said. “I love doing them both. It’s really not that hard to balance for me because I want to do it, and I have the will to do it. I love to do it.”
She is comfortable doing interviews and is likely to be put in front of microphones and cameras over the next three years as she takes on even more of a leadership role.
Northwestern Lehigh is expected to be again among the area’s best teams in 2026 despite losing two key seniors in Rylee McGinley and Shelby Mitman.
“I really do love our seniors,” she said. “I wish I had more time with them. But I think our goals are still the same for next season. We’re still super motivated. We have our pitcher [Emma Freeman] and catcher [Abby Dunstan] coming back which is such a blessing. So I really think we can be just as successful next season.”
Through April 15 this spring, Freedom was 10-2 and the two losses were to Nazareth and Central Dauphin, the two teams who would meet in June for the PIAA 6A championship.
It didn’t look like the Patriots were going to make their own run at a championship, especially not after a second loss to Nazareth, this time by an 11-1 margin, on April 23.
But it was at that point that Freedom pulled it together, winning seven in a row.
At the center of the surge was junior pitcher Namelia Duro. She hit two home runs in an 11-5 win over Liberty on May 7 at DeSales, and then shut out the Hurricanes 1-0 on four hits and no walks in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference semifinals. She followed that up with a five-hitter in a 2-1 victory over Nazareth for the second league title in program history.
Even though the Freedom season ended with a 2-1 loss to Easton in the District 11 quarterfinals, Duro established herself as The Morning Call’s Rising Star for the 2025 season.
“That Liberty game at DeSales not only meant a lot to me, but the whole team,” Duro said. “We set our sights on that EPC title, and the Liberty game gave us the confidence we needed going into that tournament. What helped me was the team mentality and that everyone was in it to win it. I trusted everyone behind me, so I was really motivated and wanted to push myself to a new limit to help my team get to where we wanted to go.”
Duro said she had to grow into her role as the team’s starter in the pitching circle.
“I came into the season knowing I was going to be the go-to after Alexis [Acevedo] graduated and we had another pitcher who was hurt,” Duro said. “So I really focused in the offseason on getting ready, and then the key was staying confident, staying composed and being what I needed to be for my team. Even though we had a rough start, I just think every team goes through a rough patch. I just tried to stay confident and knew that we were going to get out of it.”
As for 2026, Duro said: “We are losing seven great seniors, but we have the same goals. We have a lot of incoming freshmen, and it’s a matter of getting them to that level they need to be at to help our team. We want to get through another season with a good record and be in a position to get another EPC title or a district championship. Freedom has never won a district title, so we really want to go for that.”
2004: Brittany Frederick (Emmaus), Shelby Schraden (Allen)
2023: Emma Freeman (Northwestern Lehigh), Avery Kauffman (Nazareth), Addy Smith (Liberty).
