Smodic pitches Colonials to exhibition win over Rockets
JEFFERSON – You can bet Alan Smodic won’t forget his first varsity baseball pitching win. In fact he might even buy Josh Null a hotdog to help him celebrate. Smodic pitched a strong game until the seventh, and then Null came on for a spot of game-saving relief to protect an 8-7 Albert Gallatin win over host Jefferson-Morgan in exhibition baseball play Tuesday.
Albert Gallatin was rolling along with an 8-3 lead, and Smodic had a 5-hitter going until the bottom of the seventh, and then the home team kicked up some dust and looked for a time like they might pull out the decision.
Jeff Coneybeer led off the Rocket seventh with a single and went to third on Ben Barbetta’s double. With one out, Bryan Lorence was nicked by a pitch to load the bases, and A.J. Curtis sent Coneybeer home with a fly ball. Matt Fanase got aboard on an error, scoring Barbetta and moving Lorence to third from where he scored on Zack Weston’s single.
C.J. Moon followed with a double up the left-center alley, scoring Fanase and leaving the tying run at third and the winning run on second. Null was waved in to relieve Smodic and got John Pochron on strikes to end the game.
AG coach Shawn Chory said, “That was a real big strikeout for a sophomore reliever, a big out for him and the team both. This was Smodic’s first varsity win. I challenged him yesterday to the occasion and he responded with a good effort until he got tired in the seventh, and they got back into the game.
“We knew that Jeff-Morgan had the capability to come back for John Curtis has a quality program here and you can’t give them any chances for they will jump on you. We got off to a good start with four runs in the first, but then we played real sloppy on defense and let them get back into the game. We are slowly improving, but now, we have to develop some consistency for we start our section schedule Wednesday (today) against Uniontown.”
J-M coach Curtis said, “Smodic made us swing at his pitches, not ours. He had us hitting his pitches, and in turn, we were not effective in our own pitching. We weren’t alert defensively; we just didn’t play basic baseball.”
AG (2-2) had 11 hits off three Rocket pitchers, led by Jerome Manchas with two doubles, a single, and four runs batted across. Adam Weakland, Mike Kisko and Mike Corob doubled. Weston had three of the eight J-M hits, including a double, Barbetta had a double and single and Moon a double.
AG led 4-0 in the top of the first. Buncic walked to lead off, Craig Hriblan got aboard on an error, Bobby Epley singled, Kisko doubled and Manchas singled.
J-M (1-1) rebounded with three runs. Bryan Lorence led off with a single and made it to second when Curtis’ grounder was thrown wild on a force try. Fanace was safe when his grounder was mishandled and a tag was missed at third, Weston singled, and Pochron sent in the third run with a pop back of third that Hriblan caught but fell after the catch.
Doubles by Corob and Manchas made it 5-3 in the third. Ken Cerny singled to open the fourth and scored on Weakland’s double, before Corob walked in the fifth and scored on Manchas’ second double, and Buncic got what proved to be the winning run in the sixth when he singled, stole second and scored on Hriblan’s single.
After its three in the first, J-M had only two hits until the last inning. Weston doubled to open the fourth, and Barbetta singled starting the fifth. In that span, the Colonial outfield had only two putouts (three on the day), and Weston was the only runner to get past first base, reaching third on an out after his double.