High School Softball: Century Ends Regular Season with Win

On senior day, Century edged county foe Winters Mill, 5-3, in softball Tuesday.

The Knights honored the five seniors with posters and held a ceremony for Jenn Straitz, Mary Hartman, Sam Straitz, Christa Giannaccini and Katie Pugh and their parents.

Hartman went the distance for the win. She allowed seven hits, walked one and struck out eight Falcons.

Century ended the regular season at 7-7 in the county and 9-7 overall. Winters Mill was 2-12 in the county and 3-12 overall.

"The last couple weeks have been tough for us," said Century coach Jay Seaborg. "We have been scrambling. It was nice to get a win to go into the playoffs with. Like I just told them, the playoffs are the same for everybody, win or you're done. You got to approach that as every team is very good. You can’t look at anybody and say we should win this or we should win that and we don’t. It’s a tight match for all of us."

The Knights collected four of their runs in the first two innings. Winters Mill had scored one run in the first to take a 1-0 lead.

Pugh led off the bottom of the first with a single up the middle for the Knights. Hartman walked to put runners on the first and second. After an out, the runners moved up on a wild pitch.

With runners in scoring position, Jess Cole hit a grounder to third and Pugh beat the throw home for the first run. Meagan Beane followed with a single to left, which knocked in Hartman.

With two outs in the second, Pugh hit the ball up the middle for her second hit of the game. An error put runners on first and second.

A wild pitch moved the runners to second and third. Stephanie Whealton stroked the ball up the middle to drive in Pugh and Hartman to make the score 4-1.

The Falcons scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

Century got an insurance run, without a hit, in the bottom of the fifth. Three errors gave the home team the final margin of 5-3. Hartman struck out the final two Winters Mill batters for the victory.

Pugh had two hits for the Knights while teammates Whealton, Beane and Sam Straitz had singles.

Asked about his team’s hitting, Seaborg said, "All you can do is keep working. We work on hitting every day in practice. A lot of it is mental. You have to be confident in the box. The physical stuff you can work on in practice. A lot of hitting is in your head, between your ears. If you go in confident, you have a much better chance at being successful. We just have to hope our bats come alive in the playoffs."

Century is back in action Thursday, hosting Francis Scott Key at 4:30 p.m. in the first round of the 2A West region.