Pioneers ride big fifth inning to win over Gators
CONNELLSVILLE TWP. — The Geibel Catholic Gators and the visiting West Greene Pioneers played Wednesday afternoon with both looking for their first baseball win of the season. The Pioneers used a big fifth inning, sending 14 men to the plate and scoring 10 runs, to go home with a 13-3 five-inning Section 2-A win over the Gators.
“We were leading 8-3 in a game Tuesday night before we got rained out,” West Greene’s Shawn Lohr said. “We came back and really hit the ball well today. It was good to see. Better late than never.”
The Pioneers (1-4, 1-3) collected 15 hits with 10 coming in the big fifth inning. Mike Howard led the Pioneers offense with three hits, one of those a double, and four RBIs. Teammates Joe Reed, Matt Stoneking, Zack Pettit and Zack Abbott had two hits each.
“Today we were making the routine plays and kept ourselves in the ballgame,” Geibel’s Shawn Fuller said. “We made some mistakes with two outs in the fifth and everything fell apart.”
The Pioneers took a 1-0 lead in the first. Reed drew a one-out walk and scored on Howard’s double.
They added two more in the top of the third. Joe Chapman was safe on an error when a fly ball to left was dropped. He moved to third when a pick-off attempt by Jesse Yourish went wide and scored on a single by Reed. With Howard at the plate Reed stole second and scored on Howard’s single.
“I give Geibel credit, they hung around and we let them hang around the first four innings,” Lohr said. “That woke our kids up and they started making plays.”
The Gators (0-5, 0-4) got one back in the bottom of the third. Isaiah Kizner drew a one-out walk. Dalton Elcock was safe on an error back to the mound, putting two on. Ethan Jellots singled to drive in Kizner.
The Gators tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Collin Majhan and Hannah Geary hit consecutive singles. Then with two outs Yourish stroked one to left. An error on the play allowed both runners to score.
“Once we tied it up that was the first time this year the kids were really up and enthusiastic,” Fuller said. “We’ve got to learn how to play the rest of the game. We had two out in the fifth then made one bad play, then it turns into five. That’s where our inexperience shows up. We’ve got to learn from this and shake off the bad plays and come back to make a good play.”
The bad plays took their toll in the fifth inning.
West Greene regained the lead 4-3 when Stoneking tripled with one out and scored on Pettit’s single. Yourish struck out the next batter, then with two out the Pioneers plated nine more runs to take the win. In that inning Howard and Pettit each drove in two runs with Pettit and Stoneking scoring two runs each in the inning.
“We were looking at too many pitches early in the game. We’ve got to get in there and swing the bat,” Lohr said. “We started to make contact and hit the ball well today. Hopefully, we’ll get better from here.”