CURWENSVILLE – The Johnsonburg Rams baseball team ended the Curwensville Golden Tide’s two game winning streak Tuesday afternoon on the Tide’s home field, 5-0.
The victory enabled the Rams to remain unbeaten on the 2012 season at 7-0, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for the visitors, at least through the first six innings.
Curwensville sophomore hurler, Brett Gardner, more than held his own against the tough Johnsonburg nine, limiting the Rams to just one run on five hits over those first six frames. At one point Gardner struck out five straight batters, and of the five runs Johnsonburg scored, four were unearned.
Gardner’s performance wasn’t lost on Tide head coach Denny Johns, “I was really happy with Brett’s (Gardner) pitching performance this afternoon. He threw a lot of strikes and made them put the ball in play. He was very effective today.”
It should be noted that the Rams stymied the Tide with three pitchers – Cole Peterson, Mitchell Holmberg and Quinn Luhr. The trio limited Curwensville to just three singles, striking out 11 hitters and not allowing a walk.
Johnsonburg scored one run in the second inning and threatened again in the third with one out but Gardner found a way to get out of the inning unscathed.
Curwensville never got a runner beyond second base the entire contest, but did have runners on second with only one out in both the fourth and six innings but the Ram pitchers also found ways to come out of both Tide threats unharmed.
The Rams had their biggest inning in the top half of the seventh, scoring four runs, three of which were unearned thanks to two Tide fielding miscues.
C. J. Herbstritt and Kyle Sheldon each had two hits for the Rams.
Johns closed with, “Overall I felt we played well defensively for the vast majority of the game. I thought we were close to tying the game in the sixth and maybe adding a few more, but we just didn’t come up with the big hits. But I am certainly encouraged with what we did today. We just need to get in done offensively from top to bottom.”
The Tide, now 2-6, are home on Thursday for an encounter with Elk County Catholic in a game that begins at 4:15 pm.
JOHNSONBURG – 5
Cole Peterson p/ss 2110, Cameron Grumley c 3110, Mitchell Holmberg ss/p 4100, Quinn Luhr 3b/p 4012, C. J. Herbstritt cf 3120, Frank Kojancic 2b 4000, Taylor Feronti 1b 3110, Kyle Sheldon rf 3021, Devon Zilcoski lf 3000, TOTALS – 29 5 8 3.
CURWENSVILLE – 0
Tanner Elensky ss 3010, Kyle Johns 3b 3000, Boone McGary 1b 3010, Jesse Zorger lf 3000, Kyle Bloom c 3010, Jordan Russell cr 0000, Brad Coudriet cf 3000, Jake Stiles 2b 0000, Todd Munchak dh 2000, Brett Gardner p 2000, Alex Holland rf 2000, TOTALS – 24 0 3 0.
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
JOHNSONBURG 010 000 4 5 8 1
CURWENSVILLE 000 000 0 0 3 3
ERRORS – Zilcoski, Elensky, Stiles, Coudriet. LOB – JOHNSONBURG – 8 CURWENSVILLE – 3. DP – CURWENSVILLE – 2. SB – Holmberg, Sheldon, Elensky. HBP – Grumley (by Gardner).
PITCHING
JOHNSONBURG
Peterson 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K
Holmberg 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K
Luhr 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K
CURWENSVILLE
Gardner 7 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, 1 HB
WP – Holmberg. SAVE – Luhr. LP – Gardner (0-2).
UMPIRES – Jay Siegel, Bill Bacharach
Tide Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 3/27 | DUBOIS CENTRAL | 5 – 8 | 0 – 1 |
| 3/31 | “Harry Combs Classic” in VA | ||
| Broadway, VA | 4 – 18 | 0 – 2 | |
| Central, VA | 4 – 6 | 0 – 3 | |
| 4/02 | BROOKVILLE | 2 – 12 | 0 – 4 |
| 4/04 | RIDGWAY | 1 – 9 | 0 – 5 |
| 4/11 | @ Kane | ppd. | 0 – 5 |
| 4/13 | BROCKWAY | 8 – 7 | 1 – 5 |
| 4/16 | @ Glendale | 17 – 16 | 2 – 5 |
| 4/17 | JOHNSONBURG | 0 – 5 | 2 – 6 |
| 4/19 | ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC |