Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. Austintown Fitch pitcher Sydnie Watts throws a pitch towards home plate against Howland on Monday. Watts recorded 19 strikeouts in Fitch’s 1-0 win.

AUSTINTOWN — Early in the season oftentimes, arms are tight and bats are cold.

It usually takes a couple games for players and teams to find their rhythm. As a result, games can be low scoring.

Such was the case Monday night for Fitch and Howland, as the Falcons managed to eke out a 1-0 shutout victory over the Tigers in the season opener for both squads.

“We got a little undisciplined with our batting, plus being the first game, the jitters might have been there,” said Fitch assistant coach Bob Jones. “In all reality, we’re not the same team as last year. We have Sydnie Watts (in the circle), but we’re breaking in two new starters in the lineup that are freshmen. …We’re breaking in a lot of new kids.”

Pitchers for both teams controlled most of the game. Watts matched her career-high in strikeouts that she set last season with 19, while Alexia Spangler and Brooke Tatar combined for seven strikeouts for Howland.

Spangler threw the first two innings for the Tigers and Tatar came in after that. Had it not been for an injury to Spangler in the infield, Howland had hoped to keep rotating pitchers — but after Spangler went down, Tatar finished off the final four innings.

“The game plan was to go 2-2-2-1, but then (Spangler) took the shot to the ankle at third and she’s barely able to walk right now, so I wasn’t comfortable putting her back in,” said Howland head coach Nicole Wayt. “They both did what we asked them to come here and do today. We actually started out and thought we should leave (Spangler) in, but then we were like, no, let’s stay with our original plan. We were trying to throw them off a little bit.

“I’m proud of these girls. We can’t ask for anything more than this for the opener. They’re obviously one of the top teams in the area and I don’t think anybody thought we were going to come out and give them a one-run game tonight, so it feels really good.”

With the game deadlocked through five innings, something had to give.

In the bottom of the sixth, Tatar walked Watts to lead off the inning, and up stepped senior McKenna Hogan to the plate. After coming on as a pinch runner for Watts, Morgan Roby stole second and third on a wild pitch, and the Falcons were in business.

Hogan then smacked a grounder into left field, bringing Roby home and finally getting the Falcons on the board to break the scoreless tie.

“McKenna came through with a huge hit,” Jones said. “We expect that — she’s a senior. She knows what she has to do, and she came up big for us.”

Howland had chances to score too, but couldn’t capitalize. In the first inning, the Tigers got runners to second and third with no outs, but Watts then laid down three straight strikeouts to see out the threat.

Then again in the top of the sixth, Howland again left two runners on base with one in scoring position.

“I think if I went back and looked at it, I think we probably had more base runners than they had, but we left them all out there,” Wayt said. “You have to execute. You have to get your runners in there. But Watts is a strikeout pitcher and you have to be able to hit her and we weren’t able to really get too many bats on the balls, but hopefully we can come back and do it (Tuesday).”

Fitch and Howland will finish out their season-opening series today at 4:30 p.m. in Austintown.

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com