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Colonial 3 storms back to defeat Farmington, 6-5

By Rob Burchianti rburchianti@heraldstandard.Com 4 min read
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Rob Burchianti

Colonial 3 winning pitcher Trevor Stewart (9) is congratulated by Steven Edenfield (34) and the rest of his teammates after getting a strikeout to wrap up a 6-5 comeback victory over Farmington in a Fayette American Legion baseball playoff game at Rowes Run on Tuesday. Stewart pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings with five strikeouts.

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Rob Burchianti

Farmington pitcher Tyler Frey pitches against Colonial 3 in a Fayette American Legion baseball playoff game Tuesday at Rowes Run Field. Colonial 3 won, 6-5. Frey suffered the loss despite allowing just one earned run in three innings.

ROWES RUN — Trevor Stewart pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings and Nik Gibson homered and doubled as Colonial 3 rallied from a five-run deficit to defeat visiting Farmington, 6-5, in Fayette American Legion baseball playoff action on Tuesday at Rowes Run Field.

It was the completion of a suspended game from Monday when Farmington charged to a 5-0 lead before the festivities were halted by the umpiring crew due to rain in the top of the fourth inning.

Colonial 3 advances to the losers bracket final where it will play Smithfield-Fairchance in a 6 p.m. game tentatively set to be played at Smithfield Ball Field.

The winner will qualify for the regional tournament, to be hosted by Uniontown, while the loser’s season will be over.

Colonial 3 pulled within 5-4 then scored two runs in the top of the sixth to take the lead against tough-luck loser Tyler Frey.

Ricky Marucci started the rally with a walk and one out later Gibson drilled a game-tying double to deep center field, then took third on a wild pitch. Farmington almost escaped without further damage when D.J. Zimcosky lined out to shortstop Trent Uphold but his throw to third just missed doubling up Gibson.

Jordan Eicher followed with a long drive into the left-field corner that was caught momentarily but the ball then fell to the ground for an error, allowing Gibson to score what proved to be the winning run.

Stewart finished up with a scoreless seventh. He hit Colton Bittner with one out but got a ground out and a called strike three to end the game.

Stewart replaced Brandon Swaney who had allowed one run in three innings of relief on Monday. Stewart kept his team in the game, allowing two hits, a walk and a hit batsman the rest of the way.

Farmington had a chance to blow the game open when play resumed on Tuesday as the visitors had the bases loaded with two outs, but Stewart struck out Colby Simmons, who was then ejected for throwing his bat.

“Excellent job,” manager Don Bell said of Stewart’s performance. “He went out there, got after it, closed that inning out and finished it up. Hats off to him.”

“I felt pretty good,” Stewart said. “That’s probably the best outing I had all season. My curveball was alright but I was mainly going with my fastball.”

Farmington starting pitcher Connor DeMoss, who retired eight of the last nine batters he faced in throwing three shutout innings on Monday, could not take the mound due to pitch count rules, which was a big blow to manager Rodney Frazee’s team.

Frazee went with Bittner to start the bottom of the fourth but Gibson greeted him with a home run to center field that pumped life into the Colonial 3 dugout and crowd. Zimcosky followed with a single, Eicher reached on an error and Brandon Bell walked to load the bases. Steven Edenfield, Stewart and Silvio Urani each drew run-scoring walks to pull Colonial 3 within 5-4.

Frazee called on Frey to relieve Bittner and the left-hander got two pop outs and a fly out to work out of the bases-loaded, none-out jam without any further damage.

Colonial 3 loaded the bases again in the fifth on a single by Zimcosky and walks to Eicher and Stewart but Frey got a fly out to again preserve the one-run lead.

That only set the stage for Colonial 3’s game-winning rally in the sixth, however.

Gibson had two hits and two RBIs after the game resumed.

“Those were huge for us,” Bell said of Gibson’s run-producing hits.

Marucci reached base three times with two hits and a walk and Zimcosky also had two hits for Colonial 3.

Farmington drew 12 walks but could only muster four hits on singles by Uphold, Jeremy Saliba, DeMoss and Jeff King.

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