Golden Tide Stay With Unbeaten Johnsonburg Before Falling 5-3

CURWENSVILLE – The Johnsonburg Area High School baseball team brought its unbeaten record to Curwensville Monday afternoon and left still without a blemish on their 2013 record.  But it wasn’t an easy 5-3 win for the Rams who improved to 5-0. Not in the least.

Although three Ram hurlers combined for a total of 15 strikeouts, the Curwensville Golden Tide made the northern visitors scrap and dig to pick up the victory.

Tide head coach Denny Johns mentioned afterwards, “Well, you are never happy with a loss, but we played one of the better teams in District nine fairly even the entire ballgame.”

Curwensville jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Tanner Elensky lead off with a single up the middle which was followed by a Kyle Bloom single to right field.

On the play the Rams committed two errors allowing Elensky to reach home plate with the game’s first tally.

The Tide then tacked another run onto the scoreboard in the bottom half of the second with two outs, thanks to a Jordan Russell double down the left field line.

Russell made it home when Elensky followed with a two-bagger of his own to left center field and after two innings it was Curwensville leading 2-0.

Starting pitcher Kyle Johns was cruising along for the Golden Tide until trouble struck in the top half of the fourth as the Rams put together four hits and two walks to push four runs across to go out in front 4-2.

Tide reliever Curt Bloom came on in the top of the fifth inning and gave Curwensville three more quality innings of relief, allowing Johnsonburg one run on one hit.

Coach Johns liked what he saw from his pitchers on the day, saying, “I thought Kyle (Johns) and Curt (Bloom) did a real decent job on the mound for us this afternoon.  They were able to keep us in the game and give us a good shot at winning.”

The Tide battled for a run in their half of the sixth when Brett  Gardner singled to left and later scored on an error by the Ram defense, making it 4-3 after six in favor of Johnsonburg.

Johnsonburg picked up an insurance run in the top half of the seventh to set the final score at 5-3.

Elensky paced the Tide with two hits, while for the Rams it was Cole Peterson and Frank Kocjancic each getting two also.

“It was nice to see Tanner (Elensky) get a couple of hits for us today from the lead off spot”, said coach Johns, who then added, “If we can string a couple of wins together we can start to feel better about ourselves.”

The Golden Tide, 2-6, journey to DuBois on Wednesday to play the Cardinals of DuBois Central Catholic at 4:15 pm.  The Cardinals defeated the Tide earlier this month, April 15, 8-1 at Curwensville.

JOHNSONBURG  – 5

Cole Peterson ss/p 4022,  Cameron Grumley c 2000,  Mitchell Holmberg 3b/p/ss 4010,  Quinn Luhr p/3b 3100,  C. J. Herbstritt cf 3110,  Frank Kocjancic 2b 3120,  Taylor Feronti 1b 3112,  Devon Zilcoski lf 3100,  Kyle Sheldon rf 2001, TOTALS  –  27  5  7  5.

CURWENSVILLE  – 3

Tanner Elensky ss, 4121,  Kyle Bloom c 4010,  Noah Strickland cr 0000,  Jake B. Stiles 3b 4000,  Jason Bloom 1b 2000,  Hunter McCracken 2b 2000,  Brett Gardner 2b 1110,  Travis Lansberry rf 2000,  Curt Bloom p 0000,  Gage Baughman cr 0000,  Brad Coudriet lf 2000,  Alex Olson ph 1000,  Kyle Johns p/rf 3010,  Jordan Russell 3110, TOTALS  –  29  3  6  1.

SCORE BY INNINGS – R H E

JOHNSONBURG 000 400 1 – 5 7 4

CURWENSVILLE 110 001 0 – 3 6 2

ERRORS –  Sheldon, Kocjancic, Peterson, Feronti; Elensky 2. LOB – JOHNSONBURG – 9; CURWENSVILLE  – 6. 2B – Peterson,  Herbstritt; Elensky, Russell. SB –  Holmberg, Luhr.   SAC – Sheldon   SF – Feronti  DP – JOHNSONBURG. HBP – Kocjancic (by C. Bloom).

PITCHING

JOHNSONBURG

Luhr 3 IP,  4 H,  2 R,  1 ER,  1 BB,  7 K

Holmberg 2 IP,  1 H,  0 R,  0 ER,  0 BB,  2 K

Peterson 2 IP,  1 H,  1 R,  0 ER,  1 BB,  6 K

CURWENSVILLE

Johns 4 IP,  6 H,  4 R,  4 ER,  3 BB,  4 K

C. Bloom 3 IP,  1 H,  1 R,  1 ER,  1 BB,  3 K,  1 HB

WP – Holmberg LP – Johns (1-1)

UMPIRES – Hank Wilson, Scott Viehdorfer

Golden Tide Scoreboard: