NEWARK- For Johnson’s Elizabeth Yanni it was an opportunity to play with some of the best seniors in the state for one final high school game before she gets ready to return to Ivy Hill Park this fall to begin her Seton Hall University women’s softball career.
The standout catcher for the South would deliver a double and score one of her team’s 10th-inning runs in a 12-4 loss to the North in the 16th NJ Pride’s Super 36 New Jersey North-South Senior All-Star Game played on Monday night (June 15) before a large crowd on hand on a beautiful cool and comfortable mid-June evening to cap the 2026 scholastic season which just a few days earlier had seen the NJSIAA group state finals contested on the same Mike Sheppard, Sr. Field.
The all-star event is a 10-inning game in order to help provide significant playing time for all the players involved.
“It’s an honor to play with and against some of the best players in New Jersey to cap what was a great senior year,” said the talented catcher for a 3-time state sectional championship team for the Crusaders. “I love to compete and to be among these girls in this setting, where I will be playing in college, is just tremendous!”
While the South squad had plenty of star power, including undefeated St. John Vianney’s terrific duo of Gatorade Player of the Year Madison McDougall and teammate Gabby Gonzalez, it was the North, led by the co-MVP performances of Columbia pitcher Clare Shupe and Morris Catholic pitcher-key hitter Sofia Reisnger which helped propel their team to a decisive victory in a game where everyone is really a winner.
“It’s just an honor to be picked to play in this game with so many talented girls from all over the state here,” said Mount St. Dominic’s Villanova-bound 4-year star Jill Cianfrocca. “I can remember my freshman year like it was yesterday and it’s been a fun four years which have gone by so fast as we all now look forward to what’s ahead for many of us in college.”
As far as the game itself, key hits for the North were highlighted by Reisinger’s bases-clearing 3-run triple to highlight a 3-run second inning as the North took a 4-0 lead and then built on that with a run in the fifth and three more in the seventh to take an 8-0 advantage with back-to-back-to-back RBI singles from Cassidy Smith of Randolph, Sabrina Casola of Hanover Park and Jaylene Echeverry of St. Mary’s of Rutherford.
Meanwhile, superb starting pitching by Columbia’s Boston University-bound Shupe, along with a couple of innings from Morris Catholic’s Reisinger to complement her huge hit, and capped by more steady work in the circle by Watchung Hills’ Riley Bobrowski helped finish things off for the victorious North.
Meanwhile, in addition to a 3-run 10th including a double and run scored by Johnson’s Yanni, the South’s first run came in the eighth inning on a booming solo home run hammered over the fence in straightaway center field by the team’s MVP Jaelynn Nunez of Donovan Catholic.
