CURWENSVILLE—-Ryan Briskar will certainly remember his first game as head baseball coach of Curwensville. It surely wasn’t pretty, but it was truly exciting as the Tide edged West Branch 2-1 Thursday afternoon.
Curwensville managed just three hits against Warrior Jesse Husted who struck out 12 Tide. Then again, Curwensville made the most of those three hits as Trevor Horton picked up two including a double.
The Tide scored first as Mark Dellantonio drew a two out walk in the second and scored when Horton doubled down the right field line. The Warriors knotted the score at 1-1 in the top of the sixth when Ethan Lidgett doubled, moved to third on a fielder’s choice and then scored on a Lance Kolesar’s fielder’s choice.
With the score tied heading into the bottom of the sixth Ben McGary picked up a walk, stole second and moved to third on the overthrow. Designated hitter Joe Bloom delivered with two outs by punching home the winning run with a single to give Curwensville the victory in their first game of the 2007 season.
Afterwards coach Briskar said, “We didn’t hit as well as I had expected but our defense certainly kept us in the game. We win this game because of our defense.” Briskar, who last week said he was pleased with the pre-season pitching also added, “ Brett McCracken threw a great game through 6 innings and then Ben McGary came in to close the door.”
Although his team only picked up those three hits Briskar mentioned “ Trevor Horton was basically our offense in getting two of those three hits and Joe Bloom came up with a clutch hit to drive in the game winning run.”
The Tide will host Moshannon Valley this afternoon at 4 pm in another early season Moshannon Valley League game.
WEST BRANCH – 1 —-Chris Dotts cf 4020, Justin Shive 2b 4010, Jesse Husted p 4000,
Frank Norris 1b 4000, Joe Demchak ss 3010, Ethan Lidgett c 3110, Lance Kolesar 3b 3021,
Jeremy Kanouff rf 3000, Luzier ph 1000, Chris Beveridge lf 3010.
CURWENSVILLE – 2—-Brandon Hess rf 3000, Ben McGary cf/p 3100, Brett McCracken p 3000,
Nate McGary lf 0000, Jesse Hoover ss 3000, Joe Bloom dh 3011, Sam Gardner lf/cf 0000, Mark Dellantonio 2b 3100, Trevor Horton 1b 2021, Evan Olson pr 0000, Cory Bloom c 2000, Justin McGary 3b 2000
SCORE BY INNINGS
WEST BRANCH 000 001 0 —1 8 1
CURWENSVILLE 010 001 X—2 3 1
Errors – Hoover 1, Lidgett 1. LOB – Curwensville 4 and West Branch 9. 2B – Horton, Lidgett.
SB – Ben McGary 1, Joe Bloom 1, Olson 1.
PITCHING
West Branch – Husted 6 IP, 3H, 2R, 1ER, 2BB, 12K.
Curwensville – Brett McCracken 6 IP, 7H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 9K
Ben McGary 1IP, 1H, 0R, 0ER, 0BB, 1K
WP – McCracken (1-0). LP-Husted