Apr 21, 2006 By Mike Ciarochi 3 min read

Nick Apicella tossed a two-hit shutout and he and his Uniontown teammates brought their bats with them for Thursday’s 10-0 six-inning win over cross-town rival Laurel Highlands. The non-section win lifts Class AAAA Uniontown to 3-6-1 overall, while the Class AAA Mustangs fell to 4-7.

While Apicella was limiting the Mustangs to Josh Myers’ single to center in the second inning and Daryl Gesso’s double to center in the third, Uniontown erupted for 18 hits, including three each for Apicella and Nathan Fike.

All nine Uniontown batters had at least one hit.

“Nick’s our starting shortstop and one of the better ones in the area,” Uniontown coach Rob Kezmarsky said. “He’s our third pitcher and he did a great job today by just throwing strikes and staying ahead of batters.

“We have had good pitching all along. Our problem has been hitting. Maybe this game will serve as a springboard for us. We didn’t just hit, we got clutch hits and capitalized. We didn’t leave many runners on base after the first couple of innings.”

Uniontown stranded four in the first two innings, including three in a scoreless first, but left only four on base the rest of the way.

“Tip your hat to Uniontown,” Laurel Highlands coach Tom Landman said.

“After the third inning, everything they hit was falling in the right place. Uniontown deserved to win. They had that one big inning, but they hit the ball very well overall, too.”

The Red Raiders scored six runs in the bottom of the fourth inning as they batted around and knocked LH starter and loser Josh Myers out of the game.

Steve Kezmarsky’s two-run single to left was the big blow, but Uniontown had seven hits in the inning.

Josh King dove in the last two runs with a triple that made it 7-0.

Tyler Palermo came on for LH and got the third out in the fourth and gave up a run in the fifth with Ryan Kennedy singled and scored on two errors. In the sixth, Fike led off with a triple, scored on King’s double and Fike scored the clinching run on Cory Sawka’s triple to left-center.

“I was really glad our kids got to have a game like this after our tough loss at Latrobe Tuesday,” Rob Kezmarsky. “We were up 4-2 in the seventh inning and ended up losing 5-4, which was pretty heartbreaking, so hopefully this one will lift us back up and get us ready for Albert Gallatin.”

Actually, both Uniontown and Laurel Highlands face the Colonials next.

Uniontown hosts AG at 4 p.m. today before the Colonials travel to Hutchinson to meet the Mustangs at noon Saturday.