Five years ago, at this particular time the Northern Indiana area already had its schoolkids at home e-learning because the schools were shutdown after a virulent and deadly COVID-19 outbreak. Next weekend approaches the fifth anniversary of the end of Spring Break where Warsaw Community Schools, along with schools nationwide, determined all students should shelter in place for the remainder of the school year.
The Warsaw Tigers had two promising athletes who were headed toward likely spectacular senior seasons on the diamond.
Izzy Dittmar was returning from an all-conference softball season at shortstop, and Noah Burgh’s cannon arm was set to mow down opposing batters in the spring of 2020… until either of them didn’t.
At no fault of their own - this wasn’t about being scratched from a lineup – their seasons were over before they started.
Each athlete was approaching the 2020 season from a different starting point.
Burgh was looking forward to his senior season physically and mentally prepared to deliver heat across the plate.
“That's the only thing (my senior year) I was looking forward to,” Burgh recalled, “Once they canceled the first game I was like ‘OK you know they cancelled the first game (March 2020) or so you know… not a big deal.’ Once they cancelled school and the season that's kind of when it all like really kind of hit me like, ‘Well there goes my high school baseball career.”
Dittmar, on the other hand was a shortstop for the high school program, but she was raising her college recruiting stock playing catcher in off-season travel leagues. Dittmar, who would have been cleared within her senior season to play, was rehabilitating from elbow surgery.
On offense, her bat swing was something people remarked about when they saw her in action.
“I think my story was different than a lot of other athletes at that time when COVID shut everything down,” Dittmar said. “I actually had my elbow surgery February 4th (2020). Not only was I unable to really do any workouts in general, I was mostly just focusing on the rehabilitation of my arm which was pretty difficult because a lot of the physical trainers were kind of focusing on higher risk patients.”
Dittmar, currently living in the area and teaching in Warsaw’s elementary school system, eventually moved through the queue to obtain some help.
“I met with a trainer named Zach and he's like a former Yankees guy. I was really good with that. He helped me not only with the rehab of my arm but we were doing a lot of other activities for conditioning as well and I had time to kill.”
Burgh turned his lemons into lemonade by getting entrenched in a regimen and perfecting it so he could turn a COVID spring into the “longest summer ever” as the young man put it.
The Tiger pitcher was already committed to Purdue University Northwest, a Division 2 (D2) program in Indiana’s Calumet Region. He turned his focus toward preparation for college baseball while finishing his e-learning prior to prep-level graduation.
“Now, I gotta get ready for some big boy college baseball,” Burgh recalled fondly and admitting to some nervousness. “So, it was kind of scary as an 18-year-old. I kept training even when COVID hit and everything got cancelled.
“I would go play catch, go hit, come back to eat dinner,” said Burgh, who now lives and works in the Region – Valparaiso, in fact. “I tried to keep meals really nutritious because there's nothing else to do, so I wanted to get in the best shape possible for college. It turns out COVID really helped me set a routine.
“COVID still limited us to where we could go and what we could do even though we were (eventually) at (college) working out and going to class. It was easy to set a routine. For example, each morning I would eat like five eggs, drink a protein shake, and go workout. I did that for like 4 or five straight months between finishing high school at home and going to college… like, that's all I did because during COVID I felt like it was the longest summer ever because you know it ended during March of my senior year of high school.”
Burgh’s mother, Warsaw Athletics events coordinator Amy Burgh, also had keys to the gym enabling the young man a change to pitch indoors or lift during the pandemic’s worst period.
Dittmar was already looking to college, too. The Indiana Tech signee shifted gears, took advantage of additional rehab time, but still felt a bit of consternation about what lay next after experiencing something the nation hadn’t endured in over 100 years.
“I didn't know what graduation was gonna look like,” she remarked. “I didn't know how the rest of my senior year was gonna look like. I know we were holding out a lot of hope for the softball season maybe just pushing it back a little bit but once we kind of found out that everything was done for that senior year I was looking towards college.”

    Izzy Dittmar

Like Burgh, who also played summer ball to facilitate the transition to collegiate-level athletics, Dittmar spent the summer in travel league at her recruited position (catcher).
“I did play that summer,” Dittmar noted. “I was supposed to be cleared to play my senior year but I think it gave me a lot more time to prepare so when summer came everything was great! I was 100% again! Travel sports really prepare you for a lot and I think that that definitely helped me my freshman year and I think there was a lot of girls who were going back to college who were returners and they didn't have those same opportunities so I think that that definitely gave me a leg up… getting travel reps.”
Dittmar played shortstop for the Warsaw Tigers softball squad to suit their infield management needs. Catcher, however, was near and dear to her. The blend of two leagues, high school and summer, put her in two recruitable positions.
Most college softball coaches look for pitchers, catchers, and as many shortstops as they can sign. The latter position is usually filled by the best athlete on most teams who can play anywhere.
Burgh, who occasionally played infield, was primarily recruited by baseball coaches in the other aforementioned highly sought position, pitcher.
Dittmar talked about playing each position, and why she leaned toward catcher in college.
“I think that I did well in that role (shortstop) because of because of my softball IQ, but when you get to that college level I mean some of these college shortstops are 20 times more athletic than I am, and the other thing too is they're like 5’11.”
“It's easy to command the field at shortstop, too, and you’re a very, very, very pivotal person on the field… but I think just being a catcher and having to take command of the field required more backbone because if you don't have the catcher who is outspoken and takes charge I mean the game can very, very easily fall apart.”
Burgh spent his entire college baseball career at Purdue Northwest, and he made some relief appearances on the mound, but he was primarily a starting pitcher. He discussed the transition to college ball from summer travel action.
“I played summer ball, I was pitching, hitting, doing everything,” he recalled. “Once I got in the car and headed to Purdue Northwest, everybody was kind of in the same boat. All of us freshmen got our senior season scrapped.”
Now – especially with the COVID extra year afforded college athletes universally, Burgh literally moved from facing boys to facing men.
“At D2 level, everyone's got a good arm,” Burgh continued. “They’re quick, and you could be facing a 24-year-old at the plate instead of 16-to-18-year-olds.”
He also discussed dealing with pitching in two roles: starter versus reliever.
“As a starter you normally knew when you were throwing,” Burgh said. “You had all those days to prepare for it and think, you know you're starting on Saturday and you have the whole week to be sure your body is loose and ready by Saturday.
“Relieving adds some mental stuff to the season. You know it’s gonna vary from day to day when you're gonna throw, so you show up every single day just thinking ’OK, I might not get in here or I'll probably get my shot’ and that plays a big factor mentally and physically.”
Dittmar played one season at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne before transferring to Manchester University after completing the first academic semester of her sophomore year.
Each athlete, by the way, managed a rigorous schedule while managing to obtain their respective bachelor’s degrees only needing one semester following the four years they were part of their schools’ respective athletic programs.
Dittmar was welcomed to Manchester for her leadership regardless of whether she would get immediate playing reps, because the staff who welcomed her to Manchester had already seen her leadership in action as a travel league catcher.
“Manchester coaches in just that first visit I took there,” Dittmar recalled, “They were so inviting, and it felt like I had already played with these girls. They loved the sport as much as I did and that was something that like I hadn’t experienced the prior season.
“One of the things that we really talked about was the need for like a leader… that was something that they were missing. I think with some of the film and you know the coaches had watched me while I was in high school playing… they did remember that, and you know, they had talked about me coming in and just taking on that role. It’s truly what they wanted me to fill.”
Burgh had three schools wooing him when he committed during the fall of his high school senior year. Choosing Purdue Northwest not only gave his parents, Terry and Amy Burgh, the chance to balance watching him with working or managing numerous Tiger athletic events. It also afforded Burgh to pick a field of study once he finished his core requirements.
“I went to a showcase there and you know I wasn't really looking,” Burgh said. I had a couple other showcases in my mind: Grace College was one of them, and Marietta was another choice, about 5 hours away. I took a visit down there (on the Ohio side of the Ohio River bordering West Virginia) and it was beautiful, but you know, I wanted to be home if I needed to be.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to major in yet, so it wasn’t a big factor in my decision, but I realized at Purdue Northwest I could get a Purdue degree, it's really (inexpensive). I picked organizational leadership and supervision with a focus on safety with environmental health.”
Burgh now works in project management for asbestos removal and other environmental health and safety services in the Region, but visits Warsaw often. He occasionally can be seen working a Tiger athletic event.
Dittmar has a first-grade classroom where she took the reins in the second semester at Madison Elementary. She also carries certification in special education and intervention.
These two Tiger athletes will never know what their senior seasons would have held for them, but each of these individuals moved forward with energy, discipline, and vision to land in a far better place than the bleak COVID “season that never was.”