Dawn’s early light; Dawn Lantiere lit up the Lady Knights

By Jon Goralski Sports Writer Who knows what was going through that knobby kneed hitter when he trudged to the plate in the early 1980s. Scouts had little information on the tiny preteen that glared at him from the pitcher’s mound. Maybe he thought it would be easy to face a young girl on the mound. Maybe he was worried about what everyone would say if he didn’t get a hit. Dawn Lantiere nodded calmly at the catcher as he signaled her first Little League pitch. The batter dug in. The fans leaned forward in their seats, and Lantiere delivered her first memory to Southington fans. It wouldn’t be the last. “I have to be honest. I was afraid at first when I got up against those boys, but my father kept encouraging me,” Lantiere said with a smile. Three decades have passed since her first pitch, and it’s still a topic of conversation when she runs into former teammates and opponents. “After about a year or two, I learned not to be afraid. After a while, there were some people that were actually afraid of me. That was pretty funny.” From the very start, Lantiere was a fighter. Whether […]