Advosports

Alisha Quinterro didn't expect to be at the varsity level this year. She thought she would be pitching on the junior varsity team at Victoria East this year.

But she worked hard over the summer, and impressed coaches Jody Morgan and Courtney Rigamonti enough to earn a spot on the varsity roster.

It's been a learning experience for the freshman pitcher and for Rigamonti, her pitching coach.

"She's made leaps," said Rigamonti, who is in her first year coaching pitchers at Victoria East. "The girl has improved tremendously. She's learned about control, although she's hit a little bit of a slump of late, she's kind of lost that control.

"But a lot of that's mental, and it's just her finding her own rhythm."

Quinterro has gone from freshman prospect to cornerstone of a Titans team that is currently ranked No. 23 by the Texas Girls Coaches Association in Class 4A and in contention for the top spot in District 30-4A.

Quinterro, though, knows she can't rest. She is constantly working on her control and hitting her spots.

"My changeup has been my most effective, but sometimes I don't throw it right and I need to correct myself," she said. "After every pitch, I just keep telling myself what I'm doing wrong and what I need to do right."

And over shoulder all season has been Rigamonti, helping her learn how to hit spots and teaching her how to pitch instead of throw.

"She's helped me improve a lot with my pitching technique and how I throw everything," Quinterro said. "It's the little things that I need corrections on, and she always points those out and helps me with all that."

The two first started working together at the start of the year, when Rigamonti joined the staff at East and Quinterro entered high school.

Rigamonti said Quinterro almost started the season as the JV pitcher, and that she and the other coaches had many discussions about what they had as far as pitchers go.

"At the beginning of the year, we had a couple of pitchers, we weren't really sure what we had, and we went back and forth on her," Rigamonti said. "We knew she had speed, but we also knew she didn't have much control.

"But we learned through trial and error that we played best behind her."

There's still mechanics to work on, Rigamonti said. Quinterro is having to learn to rely on more than the speed of her fastball or the deception of throwing a changeup much slower. Rather, she's learning how to hit spots and be a more effective and complete pitcher, the coach said.

"A lot of pitchers now, especially Alisha, have great speed, that's all she's had to rely on," Rigamonti said. "At the high-school level, now-a-days, with all the travel ball, it's stepped up a lot, you have to be able to hit a location to get certain batters out.

"It's going back to mechanics and how can you hit a spot without forcing it there."

Quinterro said she thinks the Titans can go a long way in the playoffs, but that it will be a complete effort that will get them deep into the playoffs.

"We need to work on hitting more, because we really want to go far into the playoffs," she said.

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