May 4, 2007 By Kevin Harrison For The 4 min read

CONNELLSVILLE – Connellsville hosted Norwin Thursday afternoon in a key Section 2-AAAA contest after coming off consecutive section losses to Franklin Regional and Penn-Trafford. The Knights came in riding the momentum of a 7-0 win over Franklin Regional Wednesday. The Falcons, behind a strong pitching performance from Robbie Egan and six Norwin errors, defeated the Knights, 7-3, to remain in the hunt for a playoff berth.

“I can’t say enough about Robbie Egan. He has stepped up to be our ace this season,” Falcons coach Brian Shipley said. “He has all four section wins for us, beating Latrobe and Norwin twice.”

Connellsville got another good offensive performance from Joey Leonard, who finished with three hits and an RBI. Dustyn Pastors also helped the Falcons’ cause with a two-run triple in the fifth.

Connellsville (4-6, 6-10) took a 1-0 lead in the first. Brian Sherwood tripled to right and with one out, Leonard singled him home.

After a scoreless second inning, the Knights (6-3, 9-3) scored twice to take the lead.

Nate Babyak started things off with a single. Adam Thomas followed with another base hit. Both came around to score on a hit from Matt Griffith, taking a 2-1 lead. On the throw to the plate Griffith moved into second, and then Tom Shirley walked giving the Knights two on with one out. Egan came on to retire the next two batters on pop fly outs to get out of the jam.

Connellsville scored three in the bottom half of the inning to regain the lead. Sherwood was safe on a error to start the inning, stole second, and moved to third on a wild pitch. Josh Keslar singled him home and Leonard followed with a single. Ben Herrington laid down a sacrifice bunt, but it turned into an infield hit to load the bases. Drew Harvey singled, driving in Keslar. With one out, Seth Campbell hit a sacrifice fly right to score Leonard and give the Falcons a 4-2 lead.

“We made too many errors today. If you give a team extra outs they’re going to make you pay for it,” Norwin head coach Mike Leibdzinski said. “I think we came out flat today and weren’t ready to play. If we end up tied in the section they own the tiebreaker by beating us twice and we’re out of the playoffs. This is probably the worst game we played this year.”

Norwin made another run at Egan in the fourth inning. Egan walked Matt Whitman, and then got Nick Miller to fly to left. Egan then walked Shane Flowers and hit Babyak with a pitch to load the bases. Egan got out of trouble when Thomas popped up to the mound and Griffith flied to center.

The Falcons failed to score in the fourth, but picked up three more runs in the fifth.

Kaitan Smiley was safe on an infield error. Campbell laid down an sacrifice bunt, but an error on the play left everyone safe. Pastors came to plate with one out and took the first offering from Thomas to center for a triple, driving in Smiley and Campbell. After Sherwood grounded to short for the second out, Keslar was safe on an error at short allowing Pastors to score, giving the Falcons a 7-2 lead.

“We’ve been hitting the ball hard over the last five or six games, that’s something we’ve improved on since the first half of the season,” Shipley said. “You have to execute on the fundamentals like bunting. That was the key to the game we were able to execute playing small ball.”

The Knights added one more run in the sixth when Flowers walked and eventually came scored on a single from Griffith, who finished the day with two hits and three RBIs for the Knights.

The Falcons take a break from section play Saturday for an exhibition game against Baldwin at PNC Park at 2 pm. The Falcons then get back to work to try to win their last two section games against Hempfield and Albert Gallatin, hoping for a little help from the rest of the section against Norwin to hopefully get into the playoffs.