PHILIPSBURG — It was a case of too little, too late for the Clearfield Area High School baseball team at the Don Womer Complex Thursday afternoon.
The Bison parlayed four of their seven hits into all of their runs in the sixth inning, but Philipsburg-Osceola held on for a 4-3 win on the Gerry “Shorty” Davis Field to remain tied with Tyrone atop the Mountain League.
Nate Barr got the rally going by beating out a slow roller to shortstop for his second hit off winning pitcher Ryan Whitehead, who struck out 10 and walked only one before being pulled in the seventh inning because of the 100-pitch count.
After Eli Glass was turned into a forceout, Hayden Williams flared a single behind first base, and both scored on Harrison Peacock’s double to deep left center.
Allan Myers followed with a single to center that plated Peacock, but Whitehead averted any more trouble with two strikeouts.
“That’s a good, solid comeback,” Clearfield coach Sid Lansberry said. “Whitehead is a good pitcher. He was tough, especially early on. He had a lot of strikeouts.”
Whitehead’s last pitch was to Hunter Hipps leading off the last inning, and his grounder was bobbled.
Keegan Soltis relieved and, after Caullin Reed bunted Hipps into scoring position, induced flyouts by the Bison’s top two hitters, Barr and Glass, to save the unbeaten Whitehead’s sixth victory.
“We had the situation we wanted, we just didn’t get it done,” Lansberry said. “Credit Soltis. He came in and threw strikes.”
The Mounties (10-2, 8-2 ML) picked up a run in the third inning when Ryan Kephart reached base on an error and advanced to third on stolen bases before crossing the plate on a groundout by Soltis.
Bison hurler Hunter Dixon, who got the call because projected starter Cade Walker suffered a back injury late in Tuesday’s win over Huntingdon, was working on just one day’s rest, and the Mounties got to him for three hits in each of the next two innings.
Isaiah Dixon was hit by a pitch leading off the lower third and was pushed around the sacks by Jeremy Whitehead with a fly ball single to short left field and Trey Shaw with a solid single to center.
Then, Ryan Whitehead hammered a double to deep left center to drive in his brother, but Shaw was out at the plate on a perfect relay from Barr to Reed to Karson Rumsky to Myers.
In the fifth, the Mounties loaded the bases on Landon McDonald’s liner to left and infield hits by Soltis and Jeremy Whitehead, but Dixon limited them to a solo run on Shaw’s sacrifice fly.
Dixon was able to complete six innings, giving up eight hits and three walks with two strikeouts.
“Hunter kept us in the game after throwing 37 pitches Tuesday night,” Lansberry said. “He had no idea he was gonna start until today because we thought Cade could go.
“I thought he did a great job. He pitched good enough to win.”
The Bison fell to 7-5, with four of those losses by a total of five runs.
One of those was 2-1 to the Mounties on April 2 when Ryan Whitehead missed a complete game by one out.
“Two good games,” Lansberry said. “Good pitching. Good defense basically.”
Williams joined Barr in the two-hit column for the Bison, who’ve seen their batting average tumble 30 points in the last four games, all against their opponents’ No. 1 pitchers.
And they’ll most likely be seeing two more Monday against Punxsutawney and Tuesday against Tyrone, both games at home.
“We’ve got to get more production out of the whole order, and we haven’t been doing that,” Lansberry said. “We’ve just gotta keep plugging away.”
Mountain League standings — Philipsburg-Osceola 8-2, Tyrone 8-2, Bellefonte 8-3, Clearfield 5-5, Penns Valley 4-6, Huntingdon 3-7, Central 3-7, Bald Eagle Area 2-8.
CLEARFIELD — 3
Caullin Reed ss 3000, Nate Barr cf 4020, Eli Glass lf 4100, Hayden Williams 2b 3120, Harrison Peacock 3012, Allan Myers c 3011, Nick Domico rf 3010, Karson Rumsky 1b 2000, Hunter Dixon p 0000, Hunter Hipps dh 3000. TOTALS: 28 3 7 3.
PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA — 4
Ryan Kephart ss 4100, Landon McDonald 2b 2110, Keegan Soltis ss-p 2011, Isaiah Dixon 1b 2000, Tyson Lamb pr 0100, Bubba Slogosky lf 0000, Jeremy Whitehead dh 3120, Trey Shaw c 1012, Ryan Whitehead p 3021, Carson Jones rf 2000, Micah Martin cf 3010. TOTALS: 22 4 8 4.
Score by Innings
Clearfield 000 003 0 – 3 7 1
Philipsburg-Osceola 001 210 x – 4 8 1
E – Williams; McDonald. DP – Clearfield 1 (Reed, Rumsky and Peacock). LOB – Clearfield 6; Philipsburg-Osceola 6. 2B – Peacock; R. Whitehead. Sac – Reed. SF – Shaw. SB – Williams; Kephart, McDonald, Soltis, Jones. CS – Martin (by Dixon).
Pitching
Clearfield – H. Dixon 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 2 K.
Philipsburg-Osceola – R. Whitehead 6+ IP (faced 1 batter in 7th), 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 10 K; Soltis 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K.
HB – H. Dixon 2 (McDonald, I. Dixon). WP – R. Whitehead 1.
W – R. Whitehead (6-0). L – H. Dixon (0-2). Sv – Soltis (1).
Umpires – Jim Cushion (plate) and Jeff Holter (bases).
Bison Scoreboard:
Date Opponent Score Record
3/25 @ Bald Eagle Area 10 – 1 1 – 0
3/28 @ Huntingdon 6 – 8 1 – 1
4/02 PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA 1 – 2 1 – 2
4/04 CURWENSVILLE 5 – 2 2 – 2
4/05 @ Tyrone ppd. 2 – 2
4/06 @ Tyrone 2 – 3, 9 inn. 2 – 3
4/08 PENNS VALLEY 6 – 2 3 – 3
4/09 BROOKVILLE 22 – 12 4 – 3
4/11 @ Central 10 – 4 5 – 3
4/16 BELLEFONTE ppd. 5 – 3
4/17 @ Bellefonte 0 – 8 5 – 4
4/18 BALD EAGLE AREA 4 – 2 6 – 4
4/23 HUNTINGDON 6 – 4 7 – 4
4/25 @ Philipsburg-Osceola 3 – 4 7 – 5
4/29 PUNXSUTAWNEY
4/30 TYRONE
5/03 @ Penns Valley
5/06 CENTRAL
5/08 @ Bradford
5/09 BELLEFONTE
5/13 @ Curwensville
5/16 @ DuBois