Marios one victory away from title
CARMICHAELS – After a dominating 9-0 victory over Blue Mountain Thursday night in Game 4 of the Fayette County Baseball League Championship finals, Mario’s manager Lou Pasquale is just one win away from a championship with his team up 3-1 on the Copperheads. The shutout came courtesy of pitcher Joby Lapkowicz who had a complete game surrendering only two hits and two walks with nine strikeouts. “He was himself tonight,” said Pasquale. “But you win games by scoring more runs than the other team. We did that. Now it’s time to forget. I told the guys to enjoy the game for 10 minutes and then forgot about it and focus on tomorrow.”
The teams will meet today at Republic with the Copperheads, under the management of Richard Krause, facing elimination.
“It’s elimination time,” said Krause. “We’re going to use every single pitcher, batter and play we have tomorrow. Those suspended games hurt us though. I think you can tell as we just didn’t have the staff to bring out each game as Mario’s had. They had the depth and it’s hurting us.”
Mario’s jumped on the Copperheads in the first inning with a five-run affair.
Chad Rice, who singled as the leadoff batter, scored on J.W. Kayla’s error while Jeff Lapkowicz connected on Andy Klimak’s pitch for a single that scored Jason Greene and Scott Vansickle, and a 3-0 lead for Mario’s.
Walked batter Bill Rouse scored on a first baseman’s Charlie Humes’ error, while Jared Lapkowicz scored on a Stephan Herman double for a 5-0 lead.
Mario’s tacked on two additional runs in the top of the fourth inning to lead 7-0.
Zach Patterson scored on a Jason Greene single, while Scott Vansickle smacked a pitch that resulted in a double play for the Copperheads but also scored walked batter Corey Sawka.
Mario’s would tack on two additional runs in the sixth and seventh inning, respectively.
Sawka singled on a Derek Fritz pitch and scored after two consecutive errors that resulted in a dead-ball walk to home from third that increased Mario’s lead to 8-0.
Rouse was walked to start the inning off for Mario’s and scored on a Jared Lapkowicz 1-3 play to give Mario’s its final lead.
The Copperheads got on base on only four occasions with their farthest advancement coming in the second inning as walked batter Kayla got to second base on a Dan Novak single.
Krause said simply his team imploded in the game.
“It was just bad in every way,” said Krause. “We didn’t pitch well, we didn’t hit well and we didn’t bail out our guys when errors were made. I never would have suspected this would have happened to us tonight. We played well the last two games. Things just fell apart tonight.”
A total of four pitchers went to the mound for the Copperheads with Kevin Holdsworth finishing with the majority of mound work, pitching from midway of the first inning to the middle of the fifth and picking up the Copperheads only two strikeouts.