Burgettstown bounces back, beats Sto-Rox
Burgettstown’s Brenna Butts gets the ball a second late failing to get Sto-Rox’s Mary Cersosimo out at second base. Cersosimo was tagged out at third.
Burgettstown’s Cheyenne Winters gets a base hit in the third inning against Sto-Rox. Burgettstown came back from a six-run deficit to win the game 13-11.
BURGETTSTOWN – Brenna Butts could’ve been upset when she found out she wasn’t in the starting lineup for the Burgettstown softball team’s Section 1-A game Monday against visiting Sto-Rox, the first time all season she’s had to watch from the bench.
Similarly, the Blue Devils could’ve packed it in after the Vikings’ seven-run second inning, which gave the visitors an 8-2 lead.
Neither happened.
As a result of those out-of-nowhere performances, Burgettstown earned a season-defining win, 13-11, over Sto-Rox.
“That’s how we are,” said Butts, whose sixth-inning single pushed the Blue Devils ahead for good. “At the beginning of the game we said, ‘Let’s keep it up the whole game. Don’t get down.’
“If someone does something wrong, we always keep it up. That’s how we win.”
Not a bad formula, at least when you consider recent results, as Burgettstown won its seventh straight game and improved to 6-0, 7-2 by knocking off one of the WPIAL’s top programs.
In a shootout, no less.
“We both knew the teams were going to put the ball in play, but I didn’t think it was going to be like this,” Sto-Rox coach Bill Palermo said.
“But they deserved to win. They made less mistakes than us.”
Butts said Burgettstown, which dropped down from WPIAL Class AA this season, had circled this date back in January.
Only three teams – Sto-Rox, Vincentian and Chartiers-Houston – have won WPIAL Class A titles, and Burgettstown wanted to impress its new section mate.
“We’ve been looking for this game since the season started,” Butts said. “Even in January, that’s the team we wanted. You always pick out one team that you want, and this is the team that we wanted.”
Burgettstown pounded out 13 hits in support of starting pitcher Bryanna Lonick, one of the biggest being a bases-clearing triple from sophomore catcher Caley Ritts in the seventh inning.
It was the third hit of the day for Ritts, and it also gave her five RBI.
“Getting the big hit felt so good,” Ritts said.
But it wouldn’t have felt much different than batting practice had Burgettstown not clawed back from an early deficit – twice, actually, after Sami Scopel (two hits, two RBI) and Morgan Ellek drove in runs to answer a 1-0 Sto-Rox lead after one.
Lonick, Ellek, Alissa Torboli and Ritts all had hits in the third inning, with Ellek, who finished with three RBI, belting a 3-1 pitch to the fence in left for a double.
The Blue Devils had scored 10 or more runs in each of their first five games, and Ritts figured her team could do it again.
“When we played other teams, we were having innings where we were scoring 10 runs,” Ritts said. “So, I mean, why not? It’s Sto-Rox, sure, but we can do it against them too. We just had to stay up.”
Lonick smoked a single down the third-base line to push Burgettstown ahead, 9-8, in the bottom of the fifth, but Sto-Rox (5-1, 6-2) tied it with an unearned run in the sixth.
That, of course, set up Butts’ and Ritts’ heroics, as well as a raucous celebration for Burgettstown.
“It’s a big one,” Burgettstown coach Mark Deer said. “It’s the turning point of our season. This is a team that we always struggled with in the past.
“And when we got down, the girls didn’t let it bother them. They very easily could have quit when we were down 8-2, but they battled. (I’m) very proud of them.”