Connellsville clinches American Legion regular-season title
HOPWOOD – It took a half game to get out of low gear, but after the fifth inning, Connellsville kicked into overdrive and sped away to the Fayette American Legion Baseball League regular-season championship. Connellsville scored a dozen runs in its last three turns at bat and rolled to a 15-5 win over host Uniontown at the Hutchinson Field Friday evening.
The win leaves Connellsville 21-1 for league play (22-1 season) with a two-game lead over Carmichaels in the loss column.
Manager Sherwood Hughes said, “Even if we should lose two games and finish in a tie for first, we have the tiebreaker with two wins over Carmichaels.”
However, there is some question as to how many more games the league will play, since the playoffs are scheduled to start on Monday. Connellsville is at home with California (5:30), in the opener of a best-of-three set. The first two rounds will be best-of-three with the two survivors meeting in a best-of-five set for the playoff championship and advancement to the regional playoffs.
Charleroi, a member of the Fayette League, is the host team for the regionals and is an automatic entry no matter where they finish in the playoffs.
League officials are expected to announce the pairings over the weekend.
The teams seesawed through five innings with Uniontown leading 5-3. But from that point on, winning pitcher Travis Henry threw double zeroes, including half of his 12 strikeouts.
Hughes said, “Travis was great on the mound today, plus we played some good defense back of him, and we got the big hits when we needed them. After they scored in the fifth, Travis didn’t allow them a hit, and they had only three baserunners, with only one getting past first.”
Henry said, “My fastball was working well today, and I threw it mostly, although I was using the slider pretty often as a set-up pitch. I had several 0-1 and 0-2 spots where I could use the fastball effectively.”
Connellsville mounted a 13-hit offense. Brad Livingston had three hits, Phil Gratchic two, Tony Marciante a home run and single and Bubba Fox a single and double.
Hughes was “pleased with the offense we showed. We hadn’t played since Monday, and we were a little rusty. It took us until the fifth to find our bats.”
Uniontown was hurt by a collapsing defense, which committed eight errors behind pitcher Mike Allison and reliever Joe Hoover.
Hughes said, “They had a lot of errors, and we took advantage of them. That is surprising for Uniontown is a good team and you don’t expect them to play that kind of defense. You have to be on your toes all the time against them. Allison pitched well on the mound, but then he got behind and he had to come in with his pitches and we got to him.”
Uniontown manager Ron Popovich said, “The errors killed us, plus we made a lot of mental mistakes to go with the glove errors, and that has cost us all season. Up until the sixth inning, we were outhitting them (10-4), but they made the routine plays, and when you can do that, plus get 13 hits of your own and the opposition makes eight errors, it’s pretty hard to overcome that.”
For Uniontown (11-10), Greg Palladino hit a pair of doubles, Frank Faust three singles and Brennen Dayton two singles.
Uniontown led 1-0 in the first on singles by Nick Midlik, Dayton and Faust, and then Connellsville went up 2-1 in the top of the third when Justin Marsinko was hit by a pitch, moved ahead on an errant pickoff try and singles by Chris Marsinko and Marciante.
Uniontown came right back to tie it in the home third on singles by Dayton and Faust, around an out.
Then the teams flashed some two-out lightning.
In the top of the fifth, with two out, Chris Marsinko was alive on an error and came around on Fox’s single and another error for 3-2 lead.
Uniontown had two outs in the home fifth, then struck for three runs and a 5-3 lead on an error, singles by Dave Landman and Faust and Palladino’s second double, which was the last Uniontown hit of the game.
Connellsville went up 8-5 in the sixth. Marciante led off with a home run over the fence in left, near the foul pole, Brandon Bryner singled, Zack Leonard was hit by a pitch, Livingston walked, Gratchic singled and Justin Marsinko had a sacrifice fly, around an error.
Three more runs scored in the seventh. After two outs, Bryner walked, and Leonard, Livingston and Gratchic singled.
Hoover came on in relief, and Justin Marsinko singled in the third run.
Four runs in the eighth wrapped up the win. Chris Marsinko was aboard on an error, Fox doubled him in, Marciante walked, Bryner was safe on an error, Leonard had an RBI fly and Livingston singled, around another throwing error.
As he savored his team’s championship victory, Hughes said, “It has been a good year, and I have had two good coaches helping us reach our goals. The players learned some baseball from Mike Tremba and Bob Flockvich, who were really big helps to us.”