Ask Carly Gaffney about anything softball, and the answer comes back at you like one of her pitches - fast.

The Palmerton junior not only loves the sport, but enjoys it being the topic of conversation. And when she starts discussing it, her bubbly and energetic responses are harder to stop than a line drive coming off her bat.

“Of all the kids on the team, she far and away has the most energy and enthusiasm,” said Blue Bomber head coach Bob Hock. “That’s just her nature, her personality. She’s very outgoing and friendly, and she brings that to the field as well.

“She loves the game, loves to win and loves to compete. She takes her energy and harnesses it, and puts it to good use on the field. She’s never at a loss for something to say or something to do, and you’ve got to just love that about her.”

That’s not all Hock loves about his hurler.

Gaffney put together an amazing year - both in the circle and in the batter’s box - to help the Blue Bombers win a Colonial League championship. It also resulted in her being named the Times News/Lehigh Valley Health Network Softball Player of the Year.

“I was excited and a little surprised,” said Gaffney of the award. “There were a lot of good players this year, so I really didn’t know if I was in the running or not.

“I had a slight injury in the winter and the fall of the year before, so I was a little nervous coming back into the season. But I had tournament ball, strengthening and conditioning, and stretching stuff and they gave me a lot of things I could do to heal my bicep. And once I did that, I just kind of made some goals for the season. Most of them were pitching, but some of them were hitting, and I think I achieved most of those. It was also just about winning lots of games with my team.”

The right-hander posted a 14-7 record with a 1.54 ERA, tossing 131 2/3 innings. She threw 19 complete games, including seven shutouts. Opponents hit just .174 against her (87-for-500) and she allowed only 35 walks while striking out 217.

At the plate, she led the team in batting average (.486) collecting 35 hits in 72 at-bats. Seven of her hits were doubles and she only struck out four times. She also finished with an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 1.102.

“After the first couple games, I started to get in my groove,” said Gaffney, who holds the school’s career strikeout record with 530. “I just felt a little more comfortable, which I think gave me more confidence.”

“She obviously did a lot of work in preparation for the season,” said Hock. “She maybe had a couple bumps early on, but once she found the range with all her pitches, she really settled in and put up some big strikeout numbers game-after-game, and her ERA just kept plummeting as the year went on.”

It’s strange to think that less than three years ago, Palmerton’s head coach didn’t even know about his star pitcher.

“In 2021 (Gaffney’s freshman season), we knew we had a ton of offense and defense but we didn’t know if we had a pitcher,” said Hock. “And Carly emerged. She was a girl whose name I had heard being a good pitcher, but she wasn’t in our program the previous year.

“We had just dropped our JV program (in Gaffney’s eighth-grade year) and gone to the junior high program. So she opted not to play and just wanted to work with her pitching coach (Jen Shellhammer) and play some tournaments. Carly and her parents weren’t convinced that our program was up to speed, and they may have been right ... All in all, it may have been the best decision for her. She came out and made a name for herself as a ninth grader and hasn’t stopped since.”

Gaffney added to her impressive resume on April 10 when she threw a perfect game against Saucon Valley. Of the 21 consecutive outs she recorded that day, 17 of them came via the strikeout.

“She had a tremendous week following that game,” said Hock. “Her confidence and enthusiasm just seemed to explode from that game on. We were floundering a little bit early on. We weren’t playing our best softball. But that game, and that week in particular, seemed to catapult her into the season that she had.”

“That was really exciting for me,” said Gaffney, who practices or plays 11 months out of the year. “I hadn’t thrown one of those yet. That was one of the highlights for me this season.”

It wasn’t the top one, though.

“I was really proud of our team winning leagues,” said Gaffney. “I knew we would come out and do something special, whether it was leagues, districts or both ... It was just a great feeling.

“Probably the ride home from leagues was the most memorable moment of the year for me. We just went crazy with the music and the dancing. Then afterward, we got to ride on a firetruck in the parade and everybody got to be a part of that in one way or another. So that was really exciting.”

Also exciting - at least to Hock - is the fact that Gaffney will return for another season in 2024.

“Knowing Carly’s back, we’ll go into the season pretty much assured of being competitive in all our games,” said Hock.