Stay two-hitter leads Bulldogs past Gators
FREDERICKTOWN – Beth-Center’s Matt Stay and Geibel Catholic’s A.J. Ardabell both pitched well enough to win in their crucial Section 7-A high school baseball clash on Thursday. It was Stay’s Bulldogs, however, who did just enough to pull out a 3-1 victory over the Gators at the Beth-Center Sports Complex.
Garrett Balas keyed a two-run third inning with a fly ball single and Stay fired a complete-game two-hitter as Beth-Center improved to 6-7 overall and 5-4 in the section.
The victory jumped coach Frank Pryor’s surprising Bulldogs into sole possession of second place, one-half game in front of Bentworth, which lost to section-champion California on Thursday, and one game ahead of coach Mark Riggin’s Gators (6-7, 4-5).
The top two teams in the section qualify for the WPIAL playoffs. Beth-Center owns the tiebreaker over Geibel, having won two of their three meetings, and has split with the Bearcats.
“We need some help now,” Riggin said. “But we just have to worry about winning our last three games to give ourselves a chance.”
“If we would’ve lost today, we would’ve been in a lot of trouble,” Pryor said. “I mentioned it very little to the kids. We have a very young team. We started three freshmen and three sophomores today. We just worked on playing fundamental baseball. We had a couple breakdowns, but we survived them.”
Thanks to Stay, one of those sophomores who allowed one unearned run and two walks with six strikeouts.
“Their kid threw a great game,” Riggin said. “A.J. threw well, too. It’s a shame we couldn’t get it done for him, as good as he pitched. We made a couple mistakes that decided the game. They made a couple, too, but we couldn’t capitalize enough on them.”
Ardabell allowed only two earned runs on four hits with one walk and three strikeouts in going the distance.
Beth-Center pushed across the only two runs it would need in a third inning.
Sophomore Roger Myers led off with a single and freshman Ryan Butka was hit by a pitch. Sophomore Mike McCoy moved the runners up with the first his two sacrifice bunts. Balas followed with a fly ball to center field that the Gators’ Rob Ramsey misjudged and the ball fell in for a base hit, scoring Myers.
“I think Rob thought the ball was hit a little deeper than it was,” Riggin said. “The wind held it up a bit and he couldn’t recover in time.”
With runners on the corners, Balas stole second and Butka came home when the throw went into center field for an error to make it 2-0.
The Gators got one run back with two outs in the top of the fourth when Josh Britt reached second on an infield error, and then hustled home when Ramsey’s grounder also resulted in an error.
Stay’s bid for a no-hitter was broken up in the fifth on Ardabell’s ringing one-out double to center.
Jason White gave Stay a little more breathing room with a two-out RBI single in the sixth to make it 3-1.
Geibel got its only other hit with two outs in the seventh on Sam Manna’s bunt single. Gilbert then reached base when he struck out swinging on wild pitch that bounced out of play, but Jordan Whetzel flew out to right fielder Myers to end the game.