HYDE — Although the Clearfield Bison won the night prior against Curwensville, the way they won was not exactly how they envisioned. With five runs coming on five walks, the Bison coaches knew the bats had to also contribute. With the Penns Valley Rams coming in for a Mountain League contest on Tuesday afternoon, getting hot in the batter’s box was critical.
Unfortunately, what got hot was the Rams as they scored early, and the Bison in return had trouble making plays. Clearfield committed seven errors, and Penns Valley took advantage as they handed the Bison a 10-5 loss that left everyone in the dugout with a sour taste in their mouths.
“We didn’t play very well, and had a lot of errors,” Clearfield head coach Sid Lansberry said afterwards. “I do think both our pitchers threw well, but I also feel they deserved a better fate. But you simply cannot make that many errors and stay in the game.
“It is a complete reversal of what we did last night.”
The errors began in the first inning when Nolan Barr mishandled a grounder to third base, which allowed Ty Houtz to move to third after he singled to start the game. One batter later, pitcher Mason Lieb helped his own cause, although not by his doing, when Karson Rumsky couldn’t reel in a ground ball to short, allowing Houtz to round the bases to open the scoring. Maclain Welshans grounded out on the next at-bat, but it only resulted in the second out, and brought Colby Sweitzer home, who went in as a courtesy runner for Leib.
The 2-0 lead got extended in the third as Leib hit an RBI-double into center field, but then it was catcher Matt Bailor who had trouble handling a pitch, allowing Kyle Niewinski to cross home.
All the while, Leib was having a strong outing on the mound, as he started the day with a no-hitter through three innings, only giving up a walk to Ryan Gearhart to stop perfection. In the end, he would get the victory in a five-inning effort, giving up four hits, but striking out eight. On the opposite side, one day after getting the save against Curwensville, Kyle Elensky got tagged with the loss with four innings of work that saw him give up 10 hits, nine runs with only four of them earned.
The two squads traded runs in the fourth inning, but with the gap at 5-1, the Rams opened it up in the fifth with a four runs on the stat line.
Another error by Rumsky allowed two runs to come across home plate, then a two-RBI single by Miles Brooks opened up an eight-run gap. The final run by Penns Valley came in the sixth on a sacrifice fly from Owen Miller that brought Lieb across the plate.
Clearfield made it interesting in the bottom of the sixth when a bases-loaded walk of Hunter Dixon, then a Bailor two-RBI double began fueling a bit of a comeback. But the lone run scored in the seventh set the final as Dixon struck out for the final out of the day.
“You just cannot dig yourself a hole like we did today and expect to come back from it,” Lansberry said. “We hit the ball well late in the game, but you can’t expect to win games with that many errors.”
Clearfield (3-5-1) originally had another game slated for Wednesday, a road game against Brookville. However, Lansberry mentioned that he was alerted before the game against Penns Valley that because of the impending weather it was postponed. So, thinking ahead, Lansberry already knew what his team was going to be working on the next couple days of practice.
“We have to work on our defense. We’re going to be practicing fly balls, ground balls, and other things to prevent what happened today,” he said. “We won’t win games playing like that, especially in the Mountain League.”
The Bison will be back on their own home field on Friday for another Mountain League contest, this one against Philipsburg-Osceola. The Mounties already handed Clearfield an 11-1 loss on April 8, and Lansberry compared the loss from earlier in the season to what he witnessed on Tuesday.
“The first game against P-O was similar to this. We had eight errors in that game, and seven today,” Lansberry said. “Penns Valley pitched well against us, and we struggled to get hits. It was the same against P-O. We have to play better defensively, and we have a chance to win.”
First pitch against P-O is set for 4:30 p.m.
SCORE BY INNING
Penns Valley 202 141 0 – 10 12 1
Clearfield 000 103 1 – 5 7 7
Penns Valley – 10
Ty Houtz-2B 5130, Connor Martz-SS 4000, Aidan Brinker-C 5010, Mason Lieb-P 5232, Maclain Welshans-DH/P 4111, Malachi Thompson-CF 3110, Rylee Brungart-3B 4102, Owen Miller-1B 3011, Miles Brooks-LF 3132, Kyle Niewinski-LF 1100, Colby Sweitzer-CR 0200. TOTALS 37 10 12 8.
Clearfield – 5
Nolan Barr-3B/2B 4000, Kyle Elensky-P/3B 4220, Morgen Billotte-CF 3120, Blake Prestash-1B 4110, Karson Rumsky-SS 3101, Hunter Dixon-DH 3001, Ryan Gearhart-2B/3B/P 2000, Matt Bailor-C 3022, Cole Bloom-RF 2000, Nick Domico-CR 0000. TOTALS 28 5 7 4.
LOB: 10/7
E: Martz/Bailor, Barr-3, Coudriet, Rumsky-2
ROE: Brinker, Lieb, Welshans, Brungart-2/Prestash
2B: Brinker, Lieb/Bailor
SF: Miller
HBP: Martz
FC: Bailor
SB: Martz, Brooks, Lieb, Houtz-2
GIDP: Rumsky
Pitching
Penns Valley: Lieb-5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 8 SO, 3 BB; Welshans-2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 SO, 2 BB.
Clearfield: Elensky-4 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 4 ER, 3 SO, 1 BB; Gearhart-3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 7 SO, 1 BB.
W-Lieb
L-Elensky