Knights get their bats going in 10-5 win at Connellsville
CONNELLSVILLE — Connellsville made too many mistakes Wednesday afternoon, allowing Norwin to get its bats going as the visiting Knights beat the Falcons, 10-5, in Section 2-AAAA action.
The Knights (3-1, 5-2) collected 15 hits getting three hits each from Ray Belchick and Reno Rainey. Winning pitcher Nick Amendola helped his cause with two hits and driving in four runs.
The Falcons (1-3, 6-5) banged out 10 hits of their own. Brock Bonadio, Jim Malone and Derek Orndorff had two hits apiece.
“We misjudged a couple of fly balls in the outfield and had a couple of errors that allowed runs to score and increased our pitch count,” Connellsville’s Rob Orndorff said. “Dakota pitched a great game for us, but he got a little tired and his pitches came up in the strike zone and they took advantage like a good team should.”
Norwin took a 1-0 lead in the first when Rainey singled and came around to score on a single from Connor Perry. They added two more runs in the third. Belchick singled and scored on Rainey’s double. Amendola singled to left driving in Rainey.
The Falcons got one run back in the bottom half of the inning. Bonadio singled. Malone and Orndorff followed with base hits. Orndorff’s hit drove in Bonadio.
The Knights made the score 4-1 with another run in the top of the fifth. Bobby Svec was safe on an error at first. Belchick’s grounder to short was mishandled leaving runners at first and second. Svec moved to third on Rainey’s fly ball to right and scored when Amendola flied out to center.
The Falcons came right back with a run in the bottom half of the inning. Bonadio was hit by a pitch and came around to score on Orndorff’s triple.
“We thought were going to be strong offensively, but we’ve been struggling at the plate this year,” Norwin’s Mike Liebdzinski said. “We switched some people around in the order and we got a good performance today. Hopefully, we can continue to move in the right direction.”
Norwin made their move with four runs in the top of the sixth. Svec and Belchick had RBI singles and Amendola cracked a bases-loaded two-run double to increase the Knights’ lead to 8-2. They picked up two more runs in the top of the seventh on a two-run single from Svec.
The Falcons fought back with three runs in the bottom half of the inning. They managed to load the bases with two out. Corey Fogle singled to drive in one and Austin Puskar drove in two more with a base hit.
“We were not fundamentally sound defensively, but I felt we hit the ball well today,” Orndorff said. “We have three losses in the section, but we could very easily be 4-0 or even 3-1. No one has run away with this section and we’ll see everybody again. I told the boys what I feel in my heart there is no reason we can’t be 7-3 at the end of the second round.”