FOUNTAIN SPRINGS In the top of the second inning at yesterday's District 11 AAA quarterfinal game against North Schuylkill, Tamaqua's first base coach yelled to his hitter, "Come on. It's getting lonely over here." He may have been still thinking of Spartan junior pitcher, Christie Hutira's perfect game against his Raiders last week in a wildcard tiebreaker game.

It was nearly a repeat of her perfection as Hutira walked none, struck out four and retired 20 of the 22 hitters she faced in leading her team to a 5-0 win over the Raiders.Although the Raiders were three up and three down in all but the fourth inning, they did hit three line drive outs and were one hit away from making a run at a Spartan 3-0 lead In the fourth, Lynn Kistler finally broke the Hutira hitless spell by ripping a low fastball for a clean single to centerfield. After Alexis Boyer skied to center, Shayna Dietrich popped a soft fly that dropped inside the left field foul line so with only one out, Tamaqua (12-11) had begun a rally. Cleanup hitter, Taylor Fritz then sent a looping liner into short left field. Spartan shortstop, Tiffany Lapotsky made an outstanding over the shoulder catch and then whirled and fired the ball to second base to double up Kistler who, thinking it was a sure hit, was half way to third base."I was expecting the ball to drop too," said Tamaqua head coach, Jillian Baron, who was coaching third. "We needed to score so I can't fault my runners for taking off. Lapotsky made a terrific play.""She's just been a wonderful player for us all year," said North Schuylkill coach, Dominick Grasso. "And on offense, as our leadoff hitter, she gets on base about 90% of the time."To start the home first, Lapotsky reached on an error, stole second, was sacrificed to third and scored on a squeeze bunt by Brianna Schlauch."We played small ball in the beginning," said Grasso. "It was our intent to get an early lead for Christie."After Hutira retired the first nine hitters in a row, the Spartans padded their 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Raider hurler, Bailey Pedersen got Lapotsky on a foul out and Nadya Spotts on a ground out, but Schlauch and Rachel Gricoski followed with singles, bringing up Spartan first baseman, Chase Stokes. On a 1-0 count, Stokes belted a long homerun over the centerfield fence to increase North's lead to 4-0. Pedersen then settled down to allow only one run on one hit for the final three innings.Hutira also regained her mastery of the Raider lineup to again retire nine in a row to close out the victory."We talked about not swinging at high pitches against her," said Baron, "but we still swung and missed on too many of them.""She's come a long way," said Grasso of his star thrower. "Her screwball was great today, and this has all happened because she works so hard at her craft. I believe she will be the best pitcher in our league next year."For Tamaqua, no tears were shed after their final out of the season."There is no reason to hang our heads," said Baron. "Nobody expected us to get this far because our team is so young and inexperienced. We lose only one senior and that's our leader, Alexis Boyer. Next year we will look for bigger things because of the experience and character we gained this year."As far as the sentimentality of looking back at its good season, Baron took care of that on Thursday." We came up here only to get rained out so we all went out for pizza. This is a fun group," she said. "It was just perfect for us."Tamaqua 000 000 0 - 0 2 1No. Schuy. 103 100 x - 5 6 0Pedersen and Sassaman; Hutira and Peleschak. W - Hutira; L - Pedersen. HR - NS- Stokes (3rd, two on).