CLEARFIELD — The Clearfield American Legion baseball team bumped State College out of first place and climbed over .500 in the Central Penn League with a 9-2 win at the Lawrence Township Recreation Park Field Monday evening.
The loss was only the second in nine games for the front-runners, who slipped a half-game behind Beech Creek (8-2)..
The Post 6 Chiefs improved to 5-4 and moved to within a half-game of fourth place, occupied by Bellefonte (4-2-1), and one game back of third-place Mifflin County (6-3).
Held to six hits in their last two games of the Bellefonte Bandits Wood Bat Tournament Sunday, the Chiefs did an abrupt about-face and collected 11 hits off State College hurlers Spencer Randolph and Caleb Walls.
Swinging the big sticks were Ty Bender with two doubles and a single, Reese Wilson with a double and two singles and Jarrit Wagner with a double and a single.
Wilson drove in two runs, as did Will Myers with a single and sacrifice fly.
Jake Sorbera spaced 10 hits in going the distance on 127 pitches for his second victory.
He struck out four and walked two and was aided by a pair of double plays turned by his infielders.
Tyler Hall had three hits, one a double, while Walls and Zach Ripka had a pair of singles apiece for the visitors.
Clearfield (8-5) went in front 2-1 in the second inning. Wilson’s double down the right field line and Myers’ single to right tied it up. Myers later scored on a sac fly by Wyatt Porter.
After State College drew even on Hall’s RBI single in the top of the third frame, the Chiefs responded with two more runs. Bender walked and eventually scored the deciding run on an error. Wilson made it 4-2 with an RBI single.
Bender’s RBI single chased Randolph with one out in the fourth inning, and Clearfield got to Walls for pairs of runs in the next two frames.
Sorbera and Wagner came through with two-out RBI hits in the fifth.
Wilson’s second run-scoring single and Myers’ sac fly rounded out the offense in the sixth.
Next up for the Chiefs are back-to-back games with Bellefonte, Tuesday at home and Wednesday on the road.
STATE COLLEGE — 2
Caleb Walls cf-p 3120, Matt Tomczuk 3b 3000, Tyler Hall ss 4131, Zach Ripka c 4021, Josh Gardner lf 2010, Justin Vescio 2b 3000, Tristan Ballenger 1b 2010, Evan Smith 1b 1000, Erickson Prenatt 1b 0000, Spencer Randolph p 2000, Steven Plafcan cf 1010, Oliver Dailey rf 3000, Drew Reisinger rf 0000. TOTALS: 28 2 10 2.
CLEARFIELD — 9
Justin Fedder 2b 4110, Ty Bender rf 3132, Alec Graham pr-rf 0100, Zane Morgan c 4100, Josh Sorbera 3b 2100, Reese Wilson cf 3132, Will Myers ss 3112, Jake Sorbera p 3111, Thayne Morgan cr 0000, Brandon Orsich 1b 1000, Bryce Timko pr-1b 0000, Jarrit Wagner eh 3021, Wyatt Porter lf 1101, Alex Coval lf 0000. TOTALS: 27 9 11 8.
Score by Innings
State College 101 000 0 – 2 10 4
Clearfield 022 122 x – 9 11 1
E – Ripka, Ballenger, Smith, Randolph; Ja. Sorbera. DP – Clearfield 2 (Fedder, Myers and Orsich; Jo. Sorbera, Fedder and Timko). LOB – State College 8; Clearfield 10. 2B – Hall; Bender 2, Wilson, Wagner. Sac – Tomczuk; Jo. Sorbera, Wilson, Ja. Sorbera. SF – Myers, Porter. SB – Wilson, T. Morgan.
Pitching
State College – Randolph 3-1/3 IP, 6 B, 5 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K; Walls 2-2/3 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K.
Clearfield – Ja. Sorbera 7 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K.
HB – Randolph 1 (Porter).
W – Ja. Sorbera (2-0). L – Randolph.
Umpires – Jay Siegel (plate) and Mark Michelucci (bases).