C-H stuns unbeaten Moniteau

STRATTANVILLE – After losing in the finals of the PIAA Class AA softball tournament last year, and with most of its key players returning, Moniteau High School had high aspirations this season with hopes of redemption and a state championship.
Chartiers-Houston had other plans.
Admidst intermittent rain showers, Chartiers-Houston, the fourth-place finisher in the WPIAL, knocked off undefeated and District 9 champion Moniteau, 1-0, Tuesday in the first round of the PIAA playoffs at Clarion-Limestone High School.
“It’s huge,” Bucs head coach Tricia Alderson said. “We’ve been telling our players that we haven’t made it out of the first round of states in five years, and that was a big goal. We didn’t make it to our district final, so let’s see what we can do at states. We’re really proud of our team.”
Both teams came into the matchup known for their hitting and scoring. C-H averaged 10.95 runs per game while Moniteau had a team batting average of .453 and averaged 11.81 runs per game.
“We had very high expectations,” Moniteau head coach Lonnie Claypool said, “but we just did not get it done today. We were maybe a little bit too aggressive. We expected maybe a little harder pitching than what we’ve seen, and we just could not make adjustments and hit the ball.”
Alderson knew that in order for her team to emerge victorious, the game would need to be a low-scoring affair.
“We were just happy to get a bat on the ball,” Alderson said. “We knew we were going to have a tough time scoring runs. Going in, we knew that we needed to win a low scoring game, so it held up.”
For Moniteau (21-1), the defense came from the stellar pitching of Gannon University-commit Kennedy DeMatteis, while for C-H, a combination of steady pitching from right-hander Kaitlyn Dittrich and impressive infield and outfield play contributed to the shutout.
“We watched (DeMatteis) on TV last year,” Alderson said. “We know that she’s a really great pitcher. We were just hoping to get some runners on base and make some things happen because we knew it was going to be tough to score against her.”
Through the early innings, DeMatteis’ fastballs kept the Bucs at bay. Chartiers-Houston managed only one hit through the first five innings. Once the C-H bats started making contact with DeMatteis’ pitches, most of the hits were foul balls or flyouts because of the sheer velocity of her pitches.
Dittrich’s ability to mix up her pitches with a spinning change-up helped keep the Warriors off balance. Alderson knew that Moniteau’s hitters preferred fastballs, so she emphasized to Dittrich to use her curveball and let the team’s defense do the rest.
The Bucs defense finished with 13 groundouts and six flyouts.
In the top of the sixth inning, two walks in a span of three batters and Kayla Alderson’s steal of third base gave the Bucs runners on first and third. After a strikeout, Macie Kesneck’s single drove in Alderson for the only run of the game.
“We knew that if we got runners on, we’d be able to get them in,” Dittrich said. “We were finally able to do that.”
Alderson reminded her team before the game that all the pressure was on Moniteau.
“We’ve had practice for the last two weeks because we lost in the semis of our district, so we’ve been practicing hard and just telling them to relax,” she said. “There was really no pressure on us. It’s hard to beat an undefeated team. We just had to play our game and be loose.”
In the state quarterfinals Thursday, the Bucs will play section rival Frazier for the third time. Frazier defeated Lakeview 13-3 in six innings.