Gretna tastes sweet victory in Region B softball championship

GRETNA — It was either a fastball on the outside corner of the plate or a slice of strawberry pie. It just depended on the eye of the beholder.

But for Gretna’s Teresa Dalton it was sweet either way.

Dalton roped a double into center field in the bottom of the fourth inning to kick off a Gretna scoring run, and her Hawks went on to beat Buckingham County 4-0 in the Region B championship game on Friday.

Dalton picked up the win on the mound, tossing seven innings of one-hit softball, and she also finished with a 1-for-3 effort at the plate and two RBIs — both of which came easy as pie.

The Hawks, who host Middlesex — a 3-2 loser to Mathews in 15 innings Friday —in the opening round of the Group A state playoffs on Tuesday, are hoping to indulge their sweet tooth just a little bit longer.

“We played the entire season to get to this far. The first 17 games were the main course,” Gretna coach Ketina Brooks said. “It’s dessert time now.”

Brooks is certainly getting her mileage out of that analogy. Not only does she have her Hawks (18-4) believing that their playoff run is the cherry on top of a solid regular season, but she has them seeing flying fritters at the plate, too.

“(Brooks) said when you get up to the plate, think of the ball as your favorite dessert and get a piece of it,” said Dalton, who picked strawberry pie as her preferred pastry. “It’s the season, and I love it.”

So that was what she was swinging at in the fourth inning, with two runners on and an opportunity to break a scoreless game with the Knights (20-1). Brooks had her players move back in the box to account for Knights pitcher Javannah Taylor’s rising fastball. The move paid off.

Dalton hit the first pitch she saw to the center field fence, scoring Nichole Mills and Nina Compton to give Gretna a 2-0 lead.

“I knew (Taylor) had been trying to get ahead of the batters and then throw them junk, so I was really looking for that first pitch,” Dalton said.

The Hawks tacked two more runs that inning and, with a 4-0 advantage, handed the game back over to Dalton, who was unhittable from the mound until the seventh inning.

“Evidently she knew what she was doing. She shut us down today,” Buckingham coach Randy Christian said. “She stays around the plate and makes you hit what she wants you to hit.”

The Knights finally scratched out their first hit with two outs in the seventh, but didn’t get much more than that as the following batter grounded out to end the game and Buckingham’s perfect record. The Knights will face Region III winner Mathews on Tuesday.

“(The Hawks) had one inning that they played ball better than we did,” Christian said. “They deserved to win.”

Call it their just desserts.