Belle Vernon offense ‘Null’-ified by Pt. Marion as Legion playoffs begin
POINT MARION – Josh Null pitched a dandy of a game for Point Marion in the opener of the Fayette American Legion baseball playoffs on Saturday afternoon. Null fired 14 strikeouts leading Point Marion to a 12-2 win over visiting Belle Vernon in the first game of a best-of-three first-round series. Null served up a no-hitter through the first 3 2-3 innings and wound up with a complete game while walking just one batter and allowing one earned run on five hits.
“Null,” praised Point Marion coach Dennis Santella, “well, he was just overpowering today. He struck out 14 of 21 outs. If you don’t win with that you are not going to win with anything.”
Five of his strikeouts were inning-ending whiffs, while he threw a chair to the leadoff batter of an inning four times. Clearly, the left-hander stymied Belle Vernon all afternoon.
“It was good stuff,” said Belle Vernon coach Kurt Shutterly. “Josh is a good ballplayer. He kept us off balanced and we never got on his fastball.
“That was the best pitching against us all year.”
But was that Null’s best outing all year?
Not according to Santella who thought Null’s 10-strikeout, no-walk performance in a win over Uniontown a few days ago outdid Saturday’s win. But Santella was impressed with his speed.
“He mixed it up better (against Uniontown),” Santella said. “But you could tell his fastball (on Saturday) was a little faster.”
Null pitched with a comfortable lead the entire game after Point Marion (13-9) batted around its lineup in the first inning and scored five runs on six hits. John Angel led off the inning with a flare down the leftfield line and took second by forcing Belle Vernon (7-15) to commit a hasty throwing error.
From then on it was all Point Marion.
“Everything progressed from there,” Santella said. “It looked like they came to play. I gave them a little pep talk before the game about running the bases. We ran the bases aggressively and smart.”
Null had the big hit in the inning with a two-run double down the rightfield line scoring Craig Santella and Craig Hriblan, who reached on a walk and a double, respectively
Hriblan, Null and Scott Plaski led Point Marion with two hits apiece.
Aaron Cieply absorbed the loss for Belle Vernon. He last just three batters into the second inning with no outs before being yanked for reliever Chad McElfresh. Cieply, who in his last outing did not get out of the first inning according to Shutterly, surrendered eight runs (all earned) on seven hits and four walks.
McElfresh pitched three innings giving up two runs on three hits, as did Adams in the final two innings.
Belle Vernon just couldn’t put up the hits against Point Marion’s offense, according to Shutterly.
“(Point Marion) is just a really good hitting team with a lot of older guys,” Shutterly said. “We’re a younger and less experienced team and we got to play error free and hit the ball and we just didn’t get it done.”
Nick Biddle broke up Null’s no-hitter in the fourth inning with a single. Belle Vernon’s leading hitter was Brett King with a triple and a single. The one scoring play for Belle Vernon was a sixth-inning triple by Mike Jurcevich. He plated Matt Rowland, who reached base on a double, on the three-bagger and took home on a Point Marion throwing error.
The two runs only meant Point Marion had to add one run in the bottom of the sixth to enforce the 10-run rule for the seventh inning as it had an 11-2 advantage.
After scoring five runs in the first inning, Point Marion compiled four runs in the second and one in each of the final three innings.
Plaski led the Point Marion offense through the middle innings with a two-run double in the second inning scoring Null and Aaron Jerome, while Jerome also reached home on Plaski’s fourth-inning sacrifice fly.
The 10-run clinching score came in the sixth when Jarrod Lint doubled and scored on Daniel Panek’s sac fly.
Every spot in the Point Marion had at least one run scored except the No. 8 hitter.
“That’s good,” Santella said. “From top to bottom everyone had a hand in it from 1 to 9.”
The game ended with a remarkable juggling catch by Panek when first baseman Derek Victor chased down a pop up in shallow right field. Victor attempted an over-the-shoulder grab when the ball squirted loose from his snowcone hold only to have Panek scoop up the remains with a diving catch for the game’s final out.
“That capped off the game right there,” Santella added with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve seen that happen. It was pretty neat.”
Belle Vernon hosts Point Marion in Game Two at 5:30 p.m. today at the DiVirgilio Sports Complex in Rostraver Township.