Farmington Legion upends California, 8-1
California catcher Clay Roman reaches to make the tag on Farmington's Cody Jackson in the fourth inning of Wednesday's American Legion game.
Farmington's Anthony Sparks makes contact with the ball during his team's 8-1 American Legion win Wednesday at California.
COAL CENTER — Farmington’s American Legion baseball team evokes at least one comparison to this year’s Pittsburgh Pirates in the sense that both teams have an eye on exceeding the .500 mark.
After winning one game all last season, Farmington (5-6) moved within one game of the break even mark on Wednesday with an 8-1 win at California (9-3).
Pitcher Alex Panos went the distance for Farmington, scattering six hits, striking out six batters, and drawing the exact same words of praise from both head coaches.
“He pitched a heck of a game,” said Farmington coach Lloyd Jackson and later California coach Chase Roman.
Panos didn’t surrender a hit until Tyler Delval’s fourth-inning single and surrendered an unearned run in the seventh when Tyler Sabatula scored on a two-out error. By then, Farmington had scored eight runs in the middle innings.
The visitors broke the ice with four consecutive hits in the fourth when Dante O’Connell doubled and scored on a single by Frank Duritsky. Cody Jackson doubled, and Duritsky scored on a single by Ethan Clipp.
With two outs in the sixth, Anthony Sparks walked and moved to third on O”Connell’s hit-and-run single. Both runners scored to make it 4-0 when an errant throw to third rolled down the left field line.
Farmington made it 8-0 with two outs in the sixth. Successive walks to Blaine Shrum, Ronnie Nara, and Anthony Molchan loaded the bases. Aaron Litman doubled all three runners home and then scored when a fly ball hit by Anthony Sparks was dropped.
California got a fifth inning single by Clay Roman, a sixth inning double by Delval, and singles by A.J. Tworzydlo, Tommy Sparrow, and Tyler Sabatula in each of the final three innings, but couldn’t mount a rally.
O’Connell and Litman each had two hits each for Farmington.
Lloyd Jackson said Farmington “is a good team if we play the way we can. I’m proud of them.”
He said Panos is a battler on the mound. “I check with him every inning and ask how he’s feeling. It all worked out tonight. We made a couple of errors but we overcame them.”
California coach Chase Roman said he is hoping his team will regroup for tonight’s home game against Connellsville. He said the way Panos pitched, “there was nothing we could do about it. We couldn’t figure him out. When we put the ball in play, it was right at somebody and the game just went south.”
He said his team needs to come “with a better attitude and be ready to play” against Connellsville.