Connellsville Legion stretches unbeaten streak to 10 games
CONNELLSVILLE – Sherwood Hughes did all that worrying for nothing, thanks to some good pitching and a strong offense. Connellsville parlayed three innings of scoring with a 13-hit offense and the tough pitching effort of Travis Henry to defeat visiting Uniontown, 10-2, in Fayette American Legion Baseball League play here on Friday, the 10th consecutive win for the still unbeaten home team.
Hughes allowed afterward “I was worried coming into this game. With all the rain we have had lately we haven’t been playing a regular schedule, what with all the rainouts. Plus we were playing Uniontown, and they are always a tough opponent for us. But our players met the challenge.”
Henry struck out 10, walked only one (Justin Luckey in the seventh), and gave up seven hits. Brennen Dayton’s double was the only one for extra-bases, and Greg Palladino and Eric Darr split four of the six singles.
Play was halted by darkness in the bottom of the seventh with Connellsville batting with one out.
Hughes said, “Travis gave us a real fine effort on the mound. He pitched a very smart game, mixing his pitches well, and he challenged their good hitters once we got the lead.”
Henry said, “I used my fastball about 90 percent of the time today. I was setting them up with the slider then using the fastball as my big pitch. Confidence is the key factor on the mound.”
Connellsville’s offense included Zack Leonard’s double, two singles and three runs batted in Chris Marsinko had a triple and single, Brad Livingston and Wes Hughes doubled, and Bubba Fox and Tony Marciante each had a pair of singles.
Hughes said, “I was happy with our offense. Early in the game we left some runners on base that I would have liked to had batted in, but the hitting all came around later.”
Uniontown manager Ron Popovich said,” This was our second loss to Connellsville. In the first one, base running mistakes cost us, and today it was the defense. At the same time, while we made all those errors (5) we still stayed close to them for five innings, but in the end we didn’t have enough offense to counter the errors. Connellsville is a tough team and you can’t make mistakes like that against them.”
Connellsville (11-0, 10-0) led 2-0 in the third. With one out, Fox and Brandon Bryner singled around an error, and Leonard doubled.
Uniontown (8-6, 6-4) got one in the top of the fourth, Palladino singled to lead off, stealing second, and scoring on Frank Faust’s single.
Connellsville came right back with five in its end of the inning on a leadoff walk to Justin Marsinko and singles by Chris Marsinko, Fox, Marciante, Leonard and Kevin Bell, around an error.
Uniontown’s last run came in the fifth on Darr’s leadoff single, a walk to Luckey – the only one by Henry in the game – and Dayton’s double.
Connellsville added three in the seventh. Chris Spellman was nicked by a pitch leading off. Hughes doubled him to third, and C. Marsinko chased them both in with a triple. Fox grounded out, Marsinko held at third, and Palladino came on in relief at that point.
When Marciante was hit by a pitch, play was halted by darkness.
Hughes said, “Now we have two very big tests coming up on Monday. We will be at home for a doubleheader with Carmichaels, starting at 4 p.m. Originally, the game was scheduled as a single, but we have a lot of makeups yet, so we doubled up on this one.”