The roof fell in on the Tide in the bottom of the second as the Crusaders pushed nine base runners across home plate to put the game on ice downing Curwensville’s record to 1-2 on the rain soaked spring.
Elk County Catholic would score four runs in the bottom half of the fifth to invoke the 10-run mercy rule.
The big inning for the Tide offensively was the top half of the fifth when they scored three runs, but the damage had already been done on another nasty day weather-wise.
Shane Hoover and Kyle Bloom paced the Tide offense with two hits each. One of Hoover’s hits was a solo home run in the top half of the fifth inning. Garrett LaBorde and Jesse Zorger each smacked a double for Curwensville.
Elk County Catholic was led by Ricky Pearsall with four hits, all singles, and three RBI’s for Jack Herzing.
The Tide pitching staff issued 10 walks and two hit batsmen in addition to the 15 base hits collected by the Crusaders.
Denny Johns, Tide head coach spoke afterwards about the rough outing for his squad, “It’s obvious that we did not play well at all today. Elk County is a very good team to begin with and the way we played certainly didn’t help matters.”
Then the Tide skipper jumped ahead a bit, “We can’t dwell on this game. We need to look forward to Wednesday and get ready to bounce back.”
Curwensville travels to DuBois on Wednesday to play DuBois Central Catholic at 4:15 pm. The Tide defeated the Cardinals in the first game of the year, 5-0.
CURWENSVILLE – 5
Shae Best cf/p 3000, Hunter McCracken 2b/p 3000,Shane Hoover ss/p/cf 3121, Boone McGary 1b/p/c 3100, Garrett LaBorde rf/1b 3110, Jesse Zorger 3b 1212, Kyle Bloom c 2020, Brad Coudriet cr/rf 1000, Jordan Russell lf 2010, Shelby McGarry lf 1000, Kyle Johns p 0000, Jason Bloom dh 2001, Tanner Elensky ss/2b 0000, TOTALS – 24 5 7 4.
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC – 15
Ricky Pearsall ss 5142, Eric Wehler cf 2111, Josh Feldbauer cf 2110, Luke Daghir 3b 3100, Ben Daghir 2b/cf 1301, Jack Herzing dh 2113, Joe Childs p 0000, Pat Brennen p 0000, Brock McCullough lf 2222, Joe McLaughlin lf 1100, Zac Brody c 1201, Kyle Schneider rf 1111, Sam Schneider rf 1000, Jake Cortina 1b 2111, TOTALS – 23 15 11 11.
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
CURWENSVILLE 010 13X X 5 7 4
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC 092 04X X 15 11 1
Game ended with mercy rule in bottom of fifth inning with one out for Elk County Catholic.
ERRORS – Hoover, McGary, K. Bloom, Elensky, Brennen. LOB – CURWENSVILLE – 6 ECC – 7. 2B- LaBorde, Zorger, Feldbauer. HR- Hoover (Solo, 5th). SB- Pearsall 2, B. Daghir 2, McCullough. HBP – Brody, Cortina (both by Johns).
PITCHING
CURWENSVILLE
Johns 1 IP, 4 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 HB
McGary 1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 0 K
McCracken 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 0 K
Hoover 0 IP, 0 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 0 K
Best 1/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC
Childs 3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K
Brennen 2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K
WP – Childs LP – Johns (0-1)