Sports

Highlanders Softball Has Big Plans

Baldwin's diamond queens could be building another dynasty.

Next year, the varsity softball team will lose just two seniors and one starter from this year’s squad.

Next year, the same player who should pitch every inning for Baldwin in 2011 should pitch them all again, just like she did in 2010.

Next year, the Highlanders should have a darn good squad, maybe even a potential state champion.

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Next year, the team will be loaded with a number of seniors and juniors with years of experience.

But first, this pesky 2011 season just needs to get out of the way.

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Just don’t tell the Highlanders that. The ladies, off to a 4-0 start this season by outplaying their opponents to the tune of a combined 45-2 score, have made it very clear that next year could indeed be very special … just like this year.

In other words, for Baldwin, the future can wait.

“We definitely think that we’re the most talented (team) in the WPIAL,” said Sam Hovanec, the young and confident first-year head coach at Baldwin who hasn’t even begun to think about 2012. “We’re trying to get to the WPIAL championship (game) and win it, and I think we have the talent to do so.”

Despite her young age, Hovanec, 23—a former kinesiology major—knows a thing or two about physical prowess.

A 2005 Baldwin graduate herself, Hovanec helped the Highlanders to earn four section championships during her time as a player, including 2003, when the team finished as the WPIAL’s runner-up under then-Head Coach Vince Sortino, now the school’s athletics director.

Hovanec went on to play softball at Penn State University on a full scholarship before graduating from PSU in December 2009 and accepting a job teaching physical education at Baldwin. She was an assistant coach for the Highlanders last year when the girls bowed out of the first round of the WPIAL playoffs.

When Hovanec talks about the 2011 Highlanders, it’s hard not to get excited. Just running down the team’s young starting lineup shows a potential juggernaut for 2012, not that the current team is going to sit around and wait for a year.

Indeed, the only thing to slow Baldwin down so far in 2011 has been rain, as the team has been victimized by five postponements.

Of the four games that the team has played this year, Baldwin has taken three of them via the 10-run mercy rule, taking care of Albert Gallatin, North Hills, and high schools with 15-0, 8-2, 10-0 and 12-0 scores, respectively.

“(That)’s not normal,” Hovanec said, “but our team—not in a bad way—is not normal. We have really good hitters, and we work on hitting a lot.

“I’m not surprised at the scores … even though Peters is one of the top teams also in the WPIAL. So that was sort of a surprise, but at the same time, when it happened, once our girls get going, they’re pretty good.”

The Upper St. Clair and Peters Township games were both section tilts, giving Baldwin (2-0) sole possession right now of first place in WPIAL AAAA Section 4, which also includes , Bethel Park and Mount Lebanon high schools.

Should the Highlanders finish in the top three in Section 4, the girls will head back to the WPIAL playoffs, where the top two finishers advance to the PIAA tournament.

Baldwin’s last WPIAL title came in 2001 at the AAA level, one year before Hovanec came around as a player and four years before the WPIAL expanded to four classifications.

The Highlanders softball program has boatloads of history. The 2001 crown marked the team’s 10th WPIAL title in 17 years, including back-to-back championships in 1985 and 1986, three in a row from 1989 to 1991 and four straight from 1993 to 1996.

Much of the burden as to whether or not Baldwin will add to that legacy over the next two years falls, fairly or not, on the shoulders of junior Anna Lauterbach, who was selected as an all-state honorable-mention pitcher by the Pennsylvania Softball Coaches Association in 2010.

Lauterbach will pitch every inning that she is able to over the next two years, Hovanec said, which is just fine with Lauterbach.

“Oh yeah,” Lauterbach said. “I ice after the game … but because it’s underhanded, it’s a more natural motion (than baseball). I don’t get as sore ...

“I love being in charge of the ball, in charge of the game. I love having that control and being such a big part of it.”

Which, given her pedigree, is just fine with Hovanec.

“She’s a Division I prospect,” Hovanec said, pointing out that Lauterbach has already verbally committed to pitch at Saint Joseph’s University after leaving Baldwin. “She has the talent, and she’s very determined to win a WPIAL championship as well, to stay on course.”

Lauterbach, a 6-foot-2 forward who also helped Baldwin’s varsity girls basketball team to , uses her size to her advantage on the softball diamond as well, reaching back to put all of her frame into pitches.

Of her four complete games this year, two have been no-hitters. Granted, no-hitters aren’t as rare in softball as they are in baseball, but Lauterbach’s accomplishments are nothing to sneeze at, especially considering that she hits and runs the bases each game, too, as the team’s No. 5 hitter in the batting order.

What’s even more impressive is that Lauterbach has managed to stymie hitters during a year that was supposed to see more offense. Pennsylvania recently moved the pitching rubber for high-school softball back three more feet from home plate (from 40 feet to 43), but Lauterbach has simply adjusted very well.

“I throw more breaking pitches,” she said. “Just try to throw the hitters off.”

While batters aren’t happy to see Lauterbach, her soon-to-be coaches at Saint Joseph’s sure will be. With Lauterbach pitching from 43 feet away, she should be ready for the college level, which is already set at 43 feet.

But college can wait for now, and so can next year’s goals.

“We’re planning to win WPIALs,” said Lauterbach about 2011. “Coach preaches it. All of us believe it, and we are gonna win WPIALs.”

As for an individual goal, Lauterbach hopes to earn all-state honors again this year but as a first-teamer this time.

Junior Amber Weimer leads off for the Highlanders this year and plays second base, followed by classmate and starting catcher Laura Hall. The Highlanders have just one senior in the starting lineup: Katie Natter, who plays shortstop, bats third and is Lauterbach’s backup at pitcher.

Sophomore Abbey Suhoski bats cleanup and plays first base, followed by Lauterbach and sophomore left fielder Katie Yauch.

Juniors Karly Higgins (center field), Mara Bandi (third base) and Erica Young (right field) round out the rest of the lineup, respectively.

The amount of youth throughout that card isn’t lost on Hovanec.

“It’s nice to see,” she said. “And these girls have been playing since they were freshmen and sophomores, so they have all that experience even as juniors.”

Though Hovanec does not have individual statistics compiled through the team’s first four games yet, she said that Natter and Weimer have each collected a pair of home runs already.

Outfielder Ashley Shanahan, a frequent pinch runner for the team, is Baldwin’s other senior this year.

The Highlanders are scheduled to play their next four games at home behind Baldwin High School Stadium in a recently remodeled area complete with a new electronic scoreboard.

For the team’s full schedule, visit the ’s Athletics home page.


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