Winters springs into action, sparks Burgettstown
Burgettstown’s Hannah Abbott makes a putout at second base in front on Chartiers-Houston’s Macie Shober during Thursday’s game at Burgettstown.
Burgettstown’s Hannah Abbott attempts to tag Chartiers-Houston’s Kayla Alderson during Thursday’s game at Burgettstown.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter Burgettstown's Kate Tarr during a game with Chatiers-Houston at Burgettstown on Thursday, March 24, 2016.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter Chatiers-Houston's Kaitlyn Dittrich during a game at Burgettstown on Thursday, March 24, 2016.
BURGETTSTOWN – It’s not often that a WPIAL softball game is played in late March with temperatures in the high 60s and no rain.
Though the weather was reminicent of May, the play on the field looked very much like a non-section game in March.
Chartiers-Houston and Burgettstown combined to strand 13 baserunners, commit three errors and misplay a few balls in the field.
In a game that wasn’t exactly clean, it was fitting that a player nicknamed dog – as in junkyard dog – made the difference.
Burgettstown senior first baseman Cheyenne Winters, who earned the nickname from her teammates joking about her intense nature on the diamond and fiesty temper, drove in four runs to help the Blue Devils defeat Chartiers-Houston 5-3 to open the season at Lou Pradetto Field.
Winters went 2-for-3 and had two-run singles in the first and fifth innings for Burgettstown (1-0), which was upset in the first round of the WPIAL playoffs last May.
Against Chartiers-Houston sophomore pitcher Kaitlyn Dittrich, a crafty righthander who was all-state last season and tends to throw breaking pitches on the outside part of the plate, the Blue Devils focused on spraying the ball to right field.
On both of Winters’ decisive hits, she slapped an outside pitch to right.
“She has been a very good player for us for three years and she’s never gotten the recognition that she deserves,” Burgettstown head coach Mark Deer said. “She comes to play and she plays hard every day. You always get good at-bats out of her. Her nickname is Dog for a reason. She plays like a junkyard dog, we tell her.”
Burgettstown senior pitcher Kate Tarr, who also was an all-state selection last spring, earned the win with four strikeouts and forced the Bucs to strand seven runners. She also overcame two fielding errors.
Though the hard-throwing righthander made Chartiers-Houston uncomfortable late with pitches inside, she struggled in the first inning. The Bucs took a 1-0 lead when junior second baseman Macie Kesneck, who reached on an error, scored on a double steal with one out.
Tarr did not let another ball leave the infield in the first inning, forcing two groundouts. She followed that by hitting an RBI-double to right-centerfield in the bottom of the first, and with two runners in scoring position and two outs Winters hit a 1-1 breaking pitch to right field for a 3-1 lead.
“We’ve been practicing hitting the outside pitch all week and it paid off,” Winters said. “It’s a big confidence booster. It makes me realize that my hard work is paying off in a good way.”
Chartiers-Houston (0-1), which reached the WPIAL Class A title game last season but lost six starters to graduation, answered with another run in the top of the second when Dittrich drove in sophomore left fielder Allison Smith, who led off the inning with a double to right field.
The Bucs loaded the bases after a single by Kesneck and a walk to shortstop Kasey Scears, who is one of three freshmen starters, but Tarr got one of her four strikeouts to end the threat. They Bucs also stranded runners on first and second in the fifth inning.
“Obviously, we need to clean up a few things defensively, but I thought we were aggressive offensively,” C-H head coach Tricia Alderson said. “We hit the ball better than I expected off (Tarr) at times, but we left too many runners on base, that’s the bottom line. We had the bases loaded and the good part of our lineup up, and didn’t cash in there.”
Burgettstown made it a four-run game in the fifth inning when it loaded the bases on a bunt single by senior center fielder Cassie Carnes, an intentional walk to Tarr and senior Shania Winters’ seven-pitch walk. Cheyenne Winters capitalized by spraying the second pitch to right field for a two-run single.
Chartiers-Houston got a run in the top of the seventh when junior right fielder Brittany Blumen hit a leadoff double and scored on a single by Scears, but Tarr got two groundouts to end the game.
“We had some really good at-bats today,” Deer said. “People do not give the pitcher from Chartiers her due, but she did take them to the WPIAL championship last year, so that does say something about what she does. There were some bumps in the road there, but for the first day out and playing a good team, I thought we did well.”