DALTON LEADS GRETNA INTO STATE SOFTBALL SEMIFINALS

By Ted Allen

Published: June 5, 2008

Gretna senior Teresa Dalton pitched Diamond Fever to a Pony National World Series championship the summer before her sophomore year and Sudden Impact into the NSA World Series before her junior year.

Before the start of her senior year, she was determined to achieve the same level of success with her high school team.

“At the end of last season, she came in with a mission that if she was going to get the recognition she was due, she had to take it upon herself and pitch the way she could pitch,” said Gretna coach Ketina Brooks, who has coached Dalton and her catcher Cheryl Crews since their eighth-grade year on JV. “She knew it was going to take a team effort.”

Now in her fourth year at the helm, Brooks, a Gretna and Virginia graduate, has guided the Hawks (19-4) into today’s 1 p.m. Group A state semifinal against James River (21-5) at Radford University. She has relied on Dalton every step of the way.

“Day-in and day-out, she’s very reliable,” Brooks said. “She mixes her pitches well and she doesn’t get rattled. She’s an exceptionally smart pitcher (and) she’s taken more of a leadership role.”

But that has come from a variety of different sources — from the other five senior captains, especially leadoff hitter Ceseley Haynes, to freshman shortstop Nicole Mills, who bats second.

“This season has been a whole lot less stressful because everyone’s stepped their game up,” said Dalton, who will pitch at Randolph College next year. “We’ve always wanted to go this far. For us to actually be doing it now, it’s pretty amazing. We all set out with the same goal and now we’re making it happen.”

As much as she may have tried to carry the team on her back at first, Dalton has learned to let her teammates provide help.

She doesn’t seek to strike everyone out, knowing she has a strong defense backing her up. And this year, for the first time in her career, she has received the offensive support she needs to win when she isn’t perfect.

“We have girls that have strength (and) quick girls that can get the bunts down,” Dalton said. “We pretty much have the whole package.”

Sometimes, it just takes a little while longer than she’d like for the runs to come.

Take Tuesday’s state quarterfinal against Middlesex, when Gretna strung together five straight hits from the bottom of its lineup in the bottom of the seventh inning to turn a 4-1 deficit for a dramatic 5-4 victory.

“I was sitting on the bench kind of praying … cheering my teammates … because it was out of my hands,” said Dalton, who bats cleanup for the Hawks. “We don’t give up until the last out of the game. It doesn’t matter if we’re winning or losing, we play together to the last out.

“We were determined to win … and we did what we had to do to pull it out,” she added. “(But) I don’t want to wait this late any more. It was too emotional.”

Brooks would love to see some of that emotion and excitement carry over into today’s state semifinal.

“They’re relishing the moment of (Tuesday) night and hopefully we can take some of the momentum of last night into (today’s) game,” she said.

But like Gretna, James River needed a late-inning rally to beat Coeburn 1-0 in its state opener in Buchanan, where it got three straight singles to score the only run with two outs in the ninth.

Dalton faces a tough pitching matchup in Knights’ senior Abbie Retro, who will follow former James River phenom Angela Tincher to Virginia Tech this fall.

“It’s definitely not going to get easier,” Dalton said. “There’ll be better pitchers and hitters from here on out, the best of the best.”

Retro isn’t quite as good as Tincher, who was named USA Softball’s national collegiate player of the year as a senior this spring after leading James River to Group A state titles in 2003 and 2004, closing her prep career out on a 17-game shutout streak.

But she has one state title under her belt, as a sophomore, and has struck out 1,204 batters in her career.

“You’ve got a chance to win if you can get a run or so,” said Knights coach John Shotwell, who is 310-197 in 16 seasons.

Retro is 19-4 with a 0.47 ERA and 323 strikeouts this year, including 16 against Coeburn, stats that compare favorably to Dalton, who’s 18-3 with 187 strikeouts and an ERA of 0.71. She’s also hitting at a .660 clip with seven home runs this season and, unlike Tincher, may DH when she’s not pitching at Tech.

“They’re going to be a tough team,” Dalton said. “We’re going to treat them like any other team. We’ll try to play our game, not have any errors and just hit the ball. Hopefully, we’ll come out on top.”

Dalton has been in plenty of pitching duels in the Dogwood District, with Altavista’s Brooke Short and defending state champion William Campbell’s Amber Marstin. Unlike Retro, who lets Shotwell call most of the shots, she calls all of her pitches with backup support from Crews.

“We’ve been working together since eighth grade (so) I know what to throw to her,” Dalton said. “Most of the time I don’t have to shake her off … and she always knows where to set up.

“(Against James River) I know I have to keep the ball low and focus out there to make good pitches,” she added. “I know my defense will back me up and we’ll be successful.”