'We had a lot of trust': How the Fort Myers softball coach fueled his players to a state title
Dustin B LevyPrior to leaving for the state softball tournament in Clermont, Fort Myers head coach Johnny Manetta forgot some extra clothes he packed in his truck.
As a result, he ended up wearing the same bright green T-shirt during the Green Wave’s semifinal and title game victories. His players dubbed it his lucky shirt.
But there was nothing lucky about Manetta’s coaching performance, which helped earn Fort Myers its second state softball title, and second in four completed seasons.
Fort Myers might not have entered the postseason as the most talented or highly touted team – a coronavirus-related shutdown nearly threatened their ability to play at all – but the squad had a strong sense of identity, which came in handy all the way through the walk-off victory against Land O'Lakes in the championship game.
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That can be traced to the players who rose to the occasion and the coach who figured out how to get the most out of them.
“I think we knew that if there was a way we were going to win, (Manetta) knew how to do it,” sophomore Julia Knowler said. “I think we had a lot of trust in him that he knew how to beat teams mentally and at the game of softball.”
Playing the best when it matters most
Fort Myers’ walk-off walk that secured a 7-6 win came in an unlikely way.
Junior Haley Morales had struggled all season with chasing high pitches, Manetta said. But, with the bases loaded, her discipline in laying off those pitches to work the walk clinched the game for the Green Wave.
It was just one example of a Fort Myers player contributing to the win by doing the right thing.
“So many kids did so many things right leading up to the state championship,” Manetta said.
From top to bottom, Manetta rattled off his players who came through – no matter where they were in the lineup or if they had been struggling entering the title game.
“They played their hearts out that night, and I’ll never forget that,” Manetta said.
However, it wasn’t exactly a smooth ride. The Green Wave made seven errors in the championship game, and those defensive woes didn’t take the coaching staff by surprise.
Manetta described himself as a “pitching and defense guy,” but knew his personnel had to rely on their offense to win games.
“We just had to be OK with that and focus on our positives and try to not sit there and dwell on our negatives and what we weren’t good at,” he said.
At practices, the team spent about 30 minutes focused on defense, and an hour and a half working on offense. It was the opposite of any team Manetta had coached before.
Manetta’s 2017 state championship team, loaded with Division-I talent, faced less adversity during its run. But that meant the 2021 squad had to dig a little deeper.
“This team took some losses, took some knocks,” Manetta said. “Every game was competitive, and they needed that. … Nobody handed this team anything. They had to get better.”
For their part, the players heeded their coach’s words and brought something extra – the ability to come through in the clutch.
“At the beginning of the year he told us, ‘The softball that matters the most is toward the end of the year, so even if we lose in the beginning or aren’t doing great in the beginning, there’s still the end of the year. Just play your best softball in the end,’” Knowler said. “I think that’s what we did.”
Coaching style sets a standard
Allana Consolazio, Riley Ludlam and Meghan Kline were all in attendance at the state championship game.
The three members of Manetta’s 2017 state championship team were watching their little sisters Lexi Consolazio, Emma Ludlam and Maddie Kline win one themselves.
The three sets of sisters, all state champions, took a photo together after the game.
“We were joking about it today that older sisters don’t have one up on the little sisters anymore,” Manetta said. “It was neat to sit there and think about that.”
It’s a unique accomplishment for Manetta, but one that helps to continue building a tradition of high-quality softball at Fort Myers.
Manetta, 43, has been coaching softball for 15 years, 11 of those at Fort Myers.
Players are conscious of the reputation Manetta has built, senior Riley Sanders said.
“He’s been doing it for so long, especially with Fort Myers, so he has kind of like tradition and how things should be, and everyone is held to a higher standard because we do play at Fort Myers,” she said.
Sanders admitted she was a little scared of Manetta when she first met him around middle-school age when she attended softball camps at Fort Myers. That softened over time.
“He definitely helped my softball IQ and kind of my mental aspect of the game, like my approach at the plate,” Sanders said.
As the Green Wave’s leadoff hitter, Sanders was invaluable in the state-championship run due to her discipline and reliability to get on base. She consistently worked at-bats to get on the base paths, then used her speed to get in scoring position.
Time and time again, the recipe worked. Sanders crossed home plate as a runner 40 times for the Green Wave this season.
“There’s certain things, like at the time, you’re aggravated at – he’ll push you really hard, but, at the end of the day, it’s just to make you better, and it really does make all of us better,” Sanders said.
Manetta started working with Knowler when she was 12 as her travel softball coach.
She said he was key in helping her in the field as she used to be “scared of the ball.” For the Green Wave, Knowler was a standout at shortstop in addition to being a complete player — able to come through on the mound or at the plate when her team needed her.
“(Manetta) pushes us to be our best, and he doesn’t really care if you like the way he does it or not,” Knowler said. “He cares a lot about softball and about his players.”
This team, in particular, responded to coaches setting small challenges for the team – one game, one inning, one at-bat at a time, Manetta said. As a result, the team never fantasized about becoming state champions.
“I don’t think they believed that they could do it, and we kept challenging them,” he said. “We kept it simple.”
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Stoppage fuels the Green Wave
Perhaps the greatest challenge the Green Wave faced was before the playoffs began.
The team was shut down for two weeks after two players tested positive for COVID-19 and all the players and coaches were quarantined due to the contact tracing.
Manetta was notified the day after a tournament at Palmetto Bay Park that two players were feeling feverish. Their COVID-19 tests came back positive the next day.
The team was in touch with the school and the CDC to follow all the protocols. They were not cleared to return to practice until the day before the district tournament began.
If anything in the timeline was different – the team waiting to reach out to officials or players having less obvious symptoms – the team might not have made it back for the playoffs, Manetta said.
The first practice was “a little sluggish and a little rusty,” but the team quickly picked up the pace, Manetta said.
The time away from the field, which included missing four regular-season games, made the team hungrier than ever, Sanders said.
“When we came back from our two weeks, everyone was just really excited to be back and just ready to get back on the field,” she said.
Can they repeat?
The Green Wave will only lose two seniors next season, which naturally makes the team appear to be in good shape for 2022.
Knowler will be a junior next year, and the team as a whole has a set of intangibles that served them well this postseason.
“This group had a ton of heart,” Manetta said. “They were never going to give up.”
But winning back-to-back state championships is difficult, he noted from experience with the 2018 team that failed to repeat. The Green Wave will play every game next year with a bull's-eye on their back.
“When everybody’s circling you on their schedule, it gets a little bit harder,” Manetta said.
Still, if anyone can find a way, maybe it’s Manetta.
Knowler recounted an oft-repeated phrase of her coach that he reiterated going into the state championship to settle his players' nerves. It’s a nugget that could prove useful to a team defending a title.
“We all put our softball pants on the same way.”
Fort Myers 2021 Roster
- Makayla Jakubuwski, Freshman
- Lexi Consolazio, Sophomore
- Chloe Wademan, Sophomore
- Maddie Kline, Senior
- Madi Isley, Junior
- Yanni David, Junior
- Riley Sanders, Senior
- Molly Burch, Junior
- Alaina Mixon, Sophomore
- Julia Knowler, Sophomore
- Emma Ludlam, Junior
- Kylee Vagle, Sophomore
- Haley Morales, Junior
Class 5A 2021 State Tournament
District 13
- Fort Myers 15, Dunbar 0
- Fort Myers 10, Estero 0
Region 4
- Fort Myers 10, Immokalee 8
- Fort Myers 13, Naples 3
- Fort Myers 3, Pembroke Pines Charter 2
State Final Four
- Fort Myers 4, Bayside 1
- Fort Myers 7, Land O'Lakes 6
Follow News-Press Sports Reporter Dustin Levy on Twitter: @DustinBLevy. For additional coverage of sports across Southwest Florida, follow @newspresssports and @ndnprepzone on Instagram.