CURWENSVILLE – After winning the first game of the year in a slugfest, 15-9 on Tuesday, the Curwensville high school baseball team lost in a pitcher\’s duel at Ridgway on Thursday, 3-2.
The Golden Tide are now 1-1 on the young season and their head coach, Ryan Briskar, saw some things he liked in spite of the outcome, “Our defense played extremely well and a couple of our guys stood out today. It’s just that our offense didn’t show up this afternoon for whatever reason. But those things happen.”
The “couple” of guys Briskar was talking about was senior pitcher Ben McGary and junior second baseman Brett Sutika. McGary took the tough loss giving up only two earned runs on just four hits over the six full innings that he pitched. He struck out ten Ridgway hitters. Sutika was two for two at the plate with a pair of singles and two RBI’s.
The Elkers, trailing 2-1, pushed across two runs in the bottom of the sixth the easy way to pull out the victory. Two Joe’s, Renaud and Chittester, each banged a solo home run for Ridgway in the inning. Renaud’s came on the first pitch of the inning as he was leading off ,while Chittester smacked a one and one pitch from McGary.
Curwensville picked up a run in the top of the third as catcher Cory Bloom singled to lead off. Derek Dixon came in as a courtesy runner and promptly stole second and then scored on a single by Sutika. With the run the Tide and Elkers were tied at 1-1.
In the top of the fifth the Golden Tide pushed across the go ahead run when shortstop Jesse Hoover walked and moved to second on a passed ball. Sutika once again singled, enabling Hoover to race home to the give the Tide the lead until the bottom of the sixth.
Briskar said afterwards, “ Ben (McGary) pitched well enough to win. The two hits that hurt us were the two home runs in the sixth. Other than that he did a great job.” And for Sutika, “Brett played a great game offensively, keeping us in the ball game with a chance to win.”
Then the Tide coach addressed the lineup, \”We are going to shake up our lineup a little before the next game to hopefully get the ball rolling.”
The next game is Friday April 3, when Curwensville (1-1) is to host Cameron County at 4:15 pm.
CURWENSVILLE – 2 Ben McGary p 3010, Wes McGarry rf 3000, Jed Greslick ss 3000, Sam Gardner cf 3000, Mark Dell’Antonio 1b 3000, Jesse Hoover 2100, Cory Bloom c 2010, Derek Dixon cr 0100, Brett Sutika 2b 2022, Shae Best pr 0000, Tyler Johns 3b 3000. TOTALS – 24 2 4 2
RIDGWAY – 3 Sam Skraba ss 3100, Joe Renaud cf 3121, Mike Miraglia p 3000, Joe Chittester 1b 2111, Derek Gaffey 3b 2010, Shane Lindgren dh 2000, Nat Dornish dh 1000, Jeff Slattery lf 0000, Alan Buehler c 3000, Kevin Kilhoffer 2b 2000, Ben Jacques rf 2000. TOTALS – 23 3 4 2
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
CURWENSVILLE 001 010 0 2 4 2
RIDGWAY 100 002 X 3 4 0
ERRORS – Hoover, Sutika DP – RIDGWAY 1 LOB – CURWENSVILLE – 4 RIDGWAY – 4
SB – Dixon SAC – Gaffey 2B – Renaud HR – Renaud (sixth, solo), Chittester (sixth, solo)
PITCHING
CURWENSVILLE – McGary 6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 1 BB 10 K.
RIDGWAY – Miraglia 7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K.
WP – Miraglia LP – McGary (0-1)