WALLINGTON − It’s all smooth.

The batter waits intently for the pitch. Delilah Tabaka twirls her limber right arm with the words “Come What May” tattooed on the inside of her foreman. She releases the pitch without a grunt.

The pitch, probably a curve, maybe a cut fastball, hits the correct spot. The umpire calls strike three. The batter calmly walks back toward the dugout.

Smooth and easy. What comes in May (and April) is strikeouts, a lot of them, for the Wallington senior pitcher.

After striking out 10 batters in a 10-0 win on May 12 against JFK Iselin, Tabaka had 1,054 career strikeouts, putting her eight away from tying the all-time Bergen County record held by former Immaculate Conception star Sarah Piening.

When Wallington faces Garfield on May 14 at Dul Field, weather permitting, she’ll likely become Bergen County’s new strikeout queen.

If weather gets in the way, Wallington is scheduled to face Rutherford on May 15.

Tabaka is the first member of the 1,000-strikeout, 100-hit club in North Jersey history, although Rutherford’s Giana Yaniero will probably make it a party of two later this season. Yaniero has more than 100 hits and is 52 strikeouts away from 1,000.

“Giana is an amazing pitcher, I have played against her my whole life, in Little League, in All-Stars, we were always the top two in Little League,” Tabaka remembered. “She’s great. She really is.”

Yaniero plans to play college softball at Saint Peter’s, but Tabaka’s K Parade won’t continue past high school.

Unlike the three other current members of the North Jersey 1,000-strikeout club (Piening, Kim Prevedel and Cathy Kaminski), who all played in college, Tabaka’s last pitch for Wallington will be her last one. She has no plans to play in college.

“I tried club when I was younger, because my sister was doing all the traveling and I just didn’t like it, I was like, I just want to do this for fun,” Tabaka said. “This year, I was thinking about it because I applied to one school and spoke to one coach and thought maybe I will do it, but it just got to the point where I want to go to school and study and not worry about softball.”

Big sister Abbey played at Immaculate Conception and Wallington in high school and is now a junior infielder at Lehigh. She’s the reason Delilah started playing softball − the familiar story of going to your sister’s pitching lessons, then joining in − and Delilah said Abbey hasn’t tried to convince her to play in college either.

“She knows how draining it is, especially being D-I and studying and missing tests, I know it’s hard for her sometimes,” Tabaka said.

The strikeout record countdown is not a distraction. Tabaka was paying a lot more attention to getting her 100th hit, which she did on May 12, than getting to 1,000 strikeouts.

“I always thought of myself as just a pitcher, never really as a hitter,” Tabaka said. “I never thought I would get to that milestone in my life. One-hundred hits is pretty crazy.”

Wallington softball coach Andrea Piela was also a pitcher and hitter in her high school career. She calls getting 1,000 strikeouts and 100 hits ‘unfathomable.’

“And she does it from 43 feet [pitching distance],” Piela said. “Back in my day, it was 40 feet, so this is really, really impressive, having faith in her pitching and faith in her catcher and just working together to make it happen. Not everyone has that. I had it. I think they get it.”

Piening, now the coach at nearby St. Mary, has watched both Yaniero and Tabaka with admiration. She said records are made to be broken.

“What I admire about Delilah is she demonstrates remarkable sportsmanship and is always lifting up her teammates and respecting her opponents,” Piening said in a text message. “Giana has an incredible ability to stay focused and it shows in her performance.”

Tabaka said there’s no magic formula to strike out 1,054 hitters. Her repertoire of pitches is relatively standard; she doesn’t throw some triple-dip-drop slurve. She throws all of her pitches effectively. Although she’s tall, 5-foot-10, she’s not physically overpowering. She’s just smooth.

She believes in her catcher and best friend, Morgan Gurdak, and she believes in the work she’s put in. She’s thrown just about every day for almost two years. She’s learned that smooth is fast. Control is better than speed.

“(Strikeouts) just kind of happen,” Tabaka said. “Obviously, there are moments where I think, ‘oh, I want to strike her out’ but most of the time, I realize if they hit the ball, we just have to make a play. I’m not really aiming for a strikeout, if that doesn’t happen and we get her out, it’s all fine.”

Tabaka and the Panthers have reached two sectional finals in the last three years, losing to Kinnelon in 2022 and state power Cedar Grove in 2024. Team goals really are what matters most to her, so while a lot of people are thinking about the strikeout record, she’s thinking about a sectional title.

Wallington is 12-7 and will play in a tough bracket in Group 1, but has played a tough regular season schedule to prepare for the state tournament.

Tabaka is prepared for anything. Come what may, she’ll be smooth.