Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League

The PIAA held its first state softball tournament in 1975, but for the first five years, no WPIAL team reached the finals. That changed in 1980, when North Hills took the state by storm. Led by pitcher Leigh Curl, a steady defense and a great-hitting lineup, coach Denny Papalia’s Indians went 25-1 and became the first WPIAL softball team to win a PIAA title. Nine players had a batting average better than .300. That run support was plenty for Curl, who was inducted individually into the WPIAL Hall of Fame in 2017. She went 14-0 with an 0.34 ERA, and batted .380 with 30 RBIs. The Indians outscored opponents 23-6 in the WPIAL playoffs and allowed only three runs in the PIAA tournament, which was held over five consecutive days. In the finals, Curl pitched a two-hitter and North Hills defeated North Penn, 2-1, at Shippensburg University’s Robb Field to finish unbeaten in the double-elimination tournament. The championship was a milestone win for the WPIAL. It was 19 years before another WPIAL softball team won the state’s largest classification in 1999. Curl went on to become a 1,000-point scorer for the UConn women’s basketball team. She was named the Post-Gazette Softball Player of the Year in 1980, but she wasn’t the only star athlete on the roster. Melanie Lees batted .369, Mary Maloney batted .338 and Linda Massucci hit .344. Massucci also went 10-0 with a 1.97 ERA as a pitcher. Lees later played basketball at Kansas State, Maloney played basketball at St. Bonaventure and Massucci played volleyball and softball at Clarion. Rhonda Caye, ranked among the WPIAL’s top outfielders that season, also played softball at Clarion. All five are inducted into the North Hills Athletic Hall of Fame. North Hills defeated Mt. Lebanon, 9-3, in the 1980 WPIAL finals.