Titusville youth softball wins another banner

It's not getting old for Titusville youth softball. 

The 8-10 year-old all-stars are the latest team to run the perimeter of a softball field with a banner in hand. They may have had to borrow last year’s banner due to a back order snafu, but they girl undeniably earned the District 1 Minor League championship with a 9-3 victory over Mid-East Monday.

Their older counterparts in the 11-12 year-old division are opening up their bid for a state championship this week in Wellsboro, while the junior league team combined with Cochranton and Mid-East opened the state championships in Union City Tuesday with a huge win over a very good team from Indiana, Pa.

This team swept through the District 1 field topped off with a come from behind performance at home, their first home game of the tournament.
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The opened with a win over Lakeland 12-2, then Cambridge/Meadville/Vernon 8-0, and then a 6-2 win over Cochranton/Lakeview before facing Mid-East in the finals.

"We are just doing enough to win," said coach Shawn Beers. Though they got a little help with 13 walks, several with the bases loaded, Beers credits it to good hitting skills. "We're not swinging at bad pitches, that's a key. We had good at-bats.

Mid-East got things going early when Kambree Rial and Brinlee Ritchie scored in the first and Paytyn Clark added another in the second, but that would be it as Beatrice Popescu found ways, even when in trouble, to shut down a good Mid-East squad. 
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Titusville got going in the bottom of the second when Capri Warner sailed one over the left fielder's head for a triple to ignite a rally. She would score on a fielder's choice. Gina Beers scored on a Keely Johnson single. Johnson would later score on a wild pitch to tie the game at three.

Popescu again got out of a jam in the fourth getting a final pop up out with the bases loaded. She had pitched over a hundred pitches on the hot day so coach Beers relieved her in the fifth putting his daughter on the mound in the fifth. 
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"She was huge tonight," the proud father/coach said. "She doesn't throw hard but she was hammering the zone and her change-up was the key.”
Titusville took the lead in the fourth with the help of walks and a wild pitch. Mileigh Phillips did a good job not letting it be a worse inning striking out the next two batters to end the inning.
But the fifth inning was another story. Lesko got a 0-2 count base hit to score another run. Titusville pulled away with five runs in the fifth, mostly on walks and wild pitches.

Coach Beers reiterated the importance of patient at-bats to draw the walks and frustrate the pitchers.

The girls swept through to claim the District 1 Minor League championship and will head to Union City this Saturday to face the District 10 champions at 6 p.m. in the Section 1 tournament.

​Their goal is to become the third Titusville softball team to make it to states this year.
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“We're solid, but we gotta hit better,” Coach Beers said. “We’re going to see big pitchers now."

“Right now we're taking one step at a time. We didn't really put the hammer down on anybody, but we played enough  to get by every time. If we keep doing that we’ll be happy.”