Titans' Neuman hits one out, hurls shutout in dominating Falcons

May 5—Leading off the bottom of the first inning for Tuscarora, right-handed hitter Avery Neuman kept fouling off balls that sailed well wide of the left-field line, with some of them heading toward the stadium behind the third base dugout.

"I was trying to tell myself to wait," she said. "But it wasn't really working."

She eventually figured it out.

After piling up five two-strike foul balls, Neuman belted a homer over the left-center field fence, providing herself with all the offense she needed as a pitcher.

Neuman threw a one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts and plated both runs to lead the Titans to a 2-0 win over visiting Winters Mill in their regular-season finale.

The victory caps off perhaps the best week yet this season for Tuscarora (4-13). The Titans pulled off a 1-0 upset win over Thomas Johnson on Monday, then fell 11-9 in nine innings to South Hagerstown on Tuesday. Both those opponents are in the upper echelon of the CMC Spires.

"We're getting there," said Titans coach Michaela Persinger, whose young team has just three seniors. "We're making improvements. We're very happy, especially going against TJ and South Hagerstown this week, two very good teams in our division."

Guess who threw against the Patriots and Rebels before facing the Falcons.

"I just pitched two games already this week, so I was coming into this very tired already," Neuman said. "So I was trying to tell myself like, do what you can, just spin the ball as well as possible."

One of the tools Neuman uses to help her locate pitches is a strike zone plate. Shaped like a standard home plate, it's divided into five color-coded sections, from left to right. The thinnest sections, colored green, are on the right and left outer edges — the corners. The heart of the plate is a thick section colored red, and it's sandwiched between yellow sections that are somewhat narrower.

"You want to try to start a pitch at [one] color and you want it to end at [another] color," she said. "It helps with visualization."

Neuman's riseball seemed particularly effective on Friday, when many Falcons were swinging beneath the ball.

"She has a fastball, curveball, riseball, change-up, screwball — all of the above, pretty much," Persinger said. "A one-hitter, 12 Ks. So, she's doing her job on the mound and as a hitter. I mean, fantastic."

Neuman recorded the first 11 Winters Mill outs, 10 by strikeout and the other when she caught a pop up. Third baseman Mackenzie Facine ended that streak by catching a fly out to end the fourth.

The only hit Neuman allowed came when Breanna Collins hit a bloop single to shallow right field in the first inning. The Falcons had just three other baserunners — two of them walked and the other reached on an error.

While Neuman didn't give her fielders many chances to chase batted balls, at least not early on, she kept the Winters Mill defenders who track down foul balls pretty busy.

After fouling off five two-out strikes in her first at-bat, she had four more when she batted in the second. This time, she ended up hitting a grounder to the shortstop that resulted in an error, which allowed Neuman to reach first and speedy catcher Gabby Rodas — who reached on an infield single — to score.

"She battles really hard," Persinger said when asked about Neuman's first at-bat. "Staying back on this pitcher tonight seemed to be a challenge for all of us. She fouled a couple of them off, a lot of them off, I don't know how many it was, and then finally got one to go over the fence."

Tuscarora had three hits, including Alyssa Husband's opposite-field double to left-center.

Winters Mill center fielder Lauren Rutzebeck made a pair of hit-robbing plays, making a sliding catch on Facine's fly in the fifth and a diving catch Rodas' drive to left center in the sixth.

But such highlights didn't prevent the Titans from finishing the regular season on a high note.

"It started off a littler rocky, like a lot of teams, because some of us haven't played together before," Neuman said. "But towards the end of the season, we're doing really well, actually, and I'm excited for playoffs."