Neuman, Titans get back at Bears after hardest of hard-luck losses

Tuscarora starter Avery Neuman surrendered a single to the second Oakdale batter she faced, Milan Kneeland, on Tuesday.

That meant no matter how well Neuman pitched the rest of the game, and she was her usual dominant self in the circle, her performance would pale compared to the last time she faced the Bears on April 16, when she threw nine no-hit innings with 23 strikeouts and no walks.

But her second outing against Oakdale topped its predecessor in one very important way. Instead of suffering the hardest of hard-luck losses like she did exactly two weeks earlier to the Bears, Neuman got the victory.

Neuman threw a four-hitter with 18 strikeouts and received timely offensive support from teammates like Ella McDonald as the Titans beat the visiting Bears 2-0.

With the tying run on third and go-ahead run on second in the top of the seventh, Neuman got a swing-and-a-miss for the game-ending strikeout. She then took off her white visor, picked up her rosin bag and joined teammates to celebrate the win on Senior Night, when the Titans honored their only 12th-grader, Mackenzie Facine.

“It felt really good,” Neuman said. “We came out, we had the energy and we showed up for our senior, Mackenzie, which was really good.”

After only throwing 65 pitches in a 1-0 loss to Winters Mill on Monday, Neuman had enough energy to take another hearty crack at the Bears. Still, to save her right pitching arm, she maintained her usual practice of taking just one warmup pitch between innings.

Also, the pitcher opted for a clean-slate approach. No need to dwell on how, when these teams met earlier in the month, two throwing errors resulted in a 2-1 loss that spoiled what might’ve been the best pitching performance yet in the St. John’s-bound junior’s career.

“I was a little nervous because there’s obviously expectation from how I played last time against Oakdale,” Neuman said. “But I just tried to come in it like it was a new game.”

Her nerves also were put to the test in the seventh, when Janelle Bremner led off with a triple over the left fielder’s head.

“I kind of had a moment like that against Urbana, and I kind of crumbled then,” Neuman said. “So I was just like, ‘Let it go, pretend that she’s not there, and just focus on the batter.’ And that’s what I did.”

While 18 strikeouts is eye-catching, it’s almost a typical day at the office for Neuman.

“She’s been killing it every game, averaging pretty much over 15 strikeouts a game,” Titans coach Michaela Persinger said.

With her dominance as a pitcher, it’s easy to overlook what a strong hitter Neuman is, although opposing pitchers don’t have that problem. While Neuman didn’t receive intentional walks on Tuesday like she has several times this season, she rarely saw decent pitches. She walked twice and lined out to the shortstop.

“I was like, they’re throwing you balls. So if you get that one pitch, man, it’s dead-red, you’ve got to go with it,” Persinger said. “But she’s learned to be patient up there, she’s learned to try to work with it and she still had a positive outlook on it.”

The Titans got just enough offense from others.

In the third, McDonald ended up on third base after she lofted a fly ball to right field that the outfielder misjudged and never got a glove on.

“I was just thinking she was going to catch it, so I was like, ‘Oh man, I wish I hit it better,’” McDonald said. “But then she didn’t, and I just kept going.”

McDonald later scored the game’s first run on Brooke Goodrich’s groundout to the shortstop.

The Titans got an insurance run in the fifth, when Gabriella Rodas drew a leadoff walk, went to second when a pitch got past the catcher and scored on McDonald’s single up the middle.

Such timely hitting came after the Titans failed to score in the first, when Kneeland deftly escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam.

“We didn’t come through there. So we talked about, hey, we need to get those clutch hits in,” Persinger said. “And we had a couple girls step up and hit those balls when we got two runs across the plate.”

The Titans (5-10) hope such late-season wins provide momentum heading into the postseason.

“I think our work is paying off, especially coming into playoffs,” Neuman said.

Kneeland and Bremner, who worked the final two innings, held the Titans to four hits.