CHICORA — April Brandt had a bad knee, but good aim.

The 17-year-old Chicora resident's knee is much better these days and her aim is no longer good. It's great.

Ask anyone in the Butler County Horseshoe League.

In just her third year in the league, Brandt finished eighth among 181 pitchers with a 47.5 ringer percentage. She pitched 19 ringers out of 22 shoes at one point.

Not bad for someone who never played the game until three years ago.

"I used to do the shot put and discus in track and field, but I got hurt in eighth grade," Brandt said. "I had a patella injury in my knee. I never had surgery, but I did physical therapy for a long time.

"I couldn't do anything else athletically, but I could pitch horseshoes, so I gave it a try."

Brandt's mother, Vicki, is secretary of the Butler County league and has been a member for seven years. Both pitch for HT's Spillway.

"She practiced for a couple of weeks and just started playing," Vicki Brandt said. "Her first year wasn't spectacular, but you could see her skills were coming along."

April Brandt's ringer rate was only 14 percent as a 15-year-old. That number moved into the 30s last year before reaching 47.5 this season.

HT's Spillway had the youngest team in the league this season and wound up defeating O'Donnell's and Runt's Roadhouse — the top two teams in the regular season standings — during the playoffs.

Runt's Roadhouse had won the Butler County league title six consecutive years.

"Eight of our players were under age 25," the younger Brandt said. "The league is fun. It's competitive, but we keep it fun."

Women, boys under 16 and men over 70 are permitted to pitch from 30 feet away from the stake. All others pitch from 40 feet. Five of the top 10 pitchers in the league pitched from 30 feet. Besides Brandt, the others were men over 70.

Sonny Schiebel of Keihl Tire was the top 30-foot pitcher and has been a member of the league for more than 30 years.

"For April to make the strides she has in this short a period of time is remarkable," her mother said.

While most horseshoe pitchers put in a lot of practice time, Brandt doesn't. She practices once a week and competes for her team.

"I take it very seriously, but a lot of the older people in the league don't think I do," Brandt admitted. "Other players I know work hard at it and I don't practice that much.

"People make fun of me. They think I feel like I'm too good to practice. But when I practice more, I do worse. My arm gets tired."

Brandt has played in the Hooker Winter League the past two seasons "and that's helped me tremendously," she said.

Besides performing well in the Butler County league, Brandt was unbeaten in National Horseshoe Pitching Association-sanctioned tournaments this year. She won the Junior State Championship in September, then took first place in the adult class with a 7-0 record in the B-division at the Heller-Beith-Brown Memorial in Franklin.

Now taking classes at Butler County Community College, Brandt hopes to wind up at Slippery Rock University.

She also plans to continue pitching horseshoes.

"I'm planning on doing this for a long time," she said. "I love it. I'm trying hard to convince other younger people to join the league.

"We were the youngest team and we won it. There's a lot of great pitchers who have been around for a long time, but there's a place for us, too."