Sports shorts
Baseball Phil’s Tire wins, 7-6
Phil’s Tire scored two runs in the top of the sixth inning Thursday night, and Ryan Russell stranded the tying run on third base as the visitors held on for a 7-6 victory at Waynesburg in Fayette County Baseball League action.
Russell started the game-winning rally in the sixth when he singled with two outs. He stole second and came around to score on Ryan Shetterly’s double. Shetterly then scored on Shane Molyneaux’s single.
J.W. Kayla led off the bottom of the seventh with a single, chasing starting and winning pitcher Justin Pichora. Kayla moved to second on a wild pitch, and to third on the second groundout of the inning. Russell walked Dom Winters, but induced Anthony Belcastro, 3-for-3 to that point, into a game-ending groundout.
Phil’s Tire scored two runs in the top of the first, but Waynesburg rallied to tie the score in the bottom of the second. The visitors put up three more runs in the third, only to have Waynesburg tie the game with a single run in the bottom of the inning and two in the fourth on Ricky Stansberry’s home run.
The home team moved ahead for the only time in the game with a run in the fifth inning.
Pichora improved to 2-0, allowing nine hits with two strikeouts and one walk. Russell earned his first save of the year. Shetterly, Molyneaux, Joe Breiter and Ken Musko all had two hits with Musko adding two RBIs.
Brian Harowicz went the distance for the loss, striking out six and walking two. Belcastro had a pair of doubles and a single, and scored two runs. Mike Damerow finished with two singles.
Basketball
The Blitz finishes 8th
The Blitz 3-on-3 basketball team recently played in the Gus Macker National Tournament held in Cambridge, Ohio, and went 2-2 in placing eighth out of 17 teams in the college division.
The Blitz, coached and sponsored by Barry Rosner, has a four-man roster for its college team in Tyler Foreman (Laurel Highlands), Colby Giles (Carmichaels), Colby Grubich (Ringgold) and Andy Erjavek (Mapletown).
This was the sixth straight year The Blitz played in the national qualifier and they took on four teams from Ohio.
The Blitz opened with a 15-7 loss to Franchize (Columbus), which dropped them into the losers’ bracket. There they defeated Ice Man (Cambridge), 18-16, and Lowery Wells (New Concord), 15-12, before being eliminated by Journal Celebrities (Caldwell), 16-14.