Uniontown slams Charleroi, 17-9
HOPWOOD-Uniontown coach Ron Popovich is on the verge of making it six consecutive Fayette County American Legion Championship appearances as his team defeated Charleroi 17-9 in Tuesday night’s semifinal round opener. Tonight Uniontown travels to Veterans Field in Charleroi for a 5:30 game in an attempt to clinch the best-of-three series. Popovich knows Charleroi won’t go down without a fight as the road team demonstrated last night by routinely coming back to close gaps in the scoreboard.
“I rather be 1-0 than 0-1,” said Popovich. “That said, we know we have a tough task when we go to Charleroi tomorrow. One thing about this league is nothing is a given. Everyone plays tough.”
Trailing 10-3 to start the top of the fifth inning Charleroi closed that gap with a Drew Guarino double to score Bob Bracken and Brendon Costantino to cut the lead 10-5.
In the top of the seventh Charleroi cut the gap even further with three scores.
Mick Betler hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Bracken who had walked, while Fred Garcia hit a double to score Costantino who got on base with a single.
Meanwhile ensuing batter Nolan Zavora had a single to score Garcia to make the score 10-8.
Ethan Mildren was the pitcher for Uniontown through the first six innings, and where he left off with his fast pitching that retired 11 batters, he resumed on the plate in the bottom of the seventh.
He connected on a Guarino pitch for a grand slam to score Max Beatty, Mason Tupta and John Boskovich to extend Uniontown’s lead to 14-8 and put the game out of reach.
“Mildren pitched well for us,” said Popovich.
“He got a little tired towards the end and I left him out there a little longer than maybe I should have and he gave up a few runs. But he came right back with the bat when we needed him to and is one excellent player.”
The fact that the game took that long to decide could be a testimony to Charleroi, which trailed 6-0 after the first inning.
“The guys had a lot of character tonight,” said Charleroi coach Jim Costantino. “We weren’t without hitters tonight and facing them we knew they had great hitters too. 1-9 for them hit well but we were able to battle back and make it a game there for a while.”
In the bottom of the first, starting Charleroi pitcher Zavora gave up seven hits, one walk and a fielder’s choice to the first 11 batters he faced.
Leadoff batter Tupta and Joe Eperjesi both scored on a Zach Dascenzo double to give Uniontown a 2-0 lead.
Boskovich drove in Dascenzo with a single, while Evan Arison hit a double to score Boskovich and Mildren to make the score 5-0.
Max Beatty pushed in Gio Schiano with a single to make the score 6-0.
After Charleroi picked up three runs in the top of the third, Uniontown added four more in the bottom of that inning with Dascenzo hitting a double to score Tupta and Eperjesi to make the score 10-3.
Uniontown tacked on three insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth with a double by Boskovich, giving the winners a 17-8 lead, while Zavora finished his night with a single to score Betler in the top of the ninth with the final run. Charleroi second baseman Chad Pappasergi is tripped up by Uniontown?s Evan Arison Tuesday afternoon, but he holds onto the ball to get the force out on Arison in American Legion playoff action. John F. Brothers/Herald-Standard