CURWENSVILLE – The Moshannon Valley League (MVL) baseball championship was up for grabs in Curwensville on Tuesday afternoon and the Warriors of West Branch held the trophy after beating the Golden Tide, 11-0, in a battle of unbeaten league foes.
It was all over after six innings as the 10-run mercy rule came into play.
The Tide and Warriors both came into the game with identical 3-0 MVL records. Only one game with each team in the MVL counts toward the standings as some teams, like Curwensville, play each MVL opponent only one time. The Warriors win the league title with a 4-0 mark while the Tide end league play at 3-1.
West Branch broke open a scoreless game with five runs in the top of the third inning and never looked back. The Warriors added four more runs in the fifth and two in the sixth which brought the 10-run mercy rule into play after six innings.
Tyler Bell paved the way for West Branch by going three for four and driving in five runs. Bell had the game\’s only extra base hit, a fifth inning double.
Assisting Bell with the offensive load for the Warriors was Dylan Corl, Chris Beveridge and Aaron Symosky who each had two hits, all singles.
Jeremy Kanouff went the distance for West Branch to pick up the win. Kanouff scattered six hits along the way and was aided by three double plays turned in by the Warrior defense.
West Branch improves to 10-8 on the year while the Tide fall to 10-5.
Ben McGary and Wes McGarry each had two singles to lead Curwensville who suffered their first shutout of the 2009 campaign.
Tide head coach Ryan Briskar talked about the contest afterwards, “West Branch came to play. They hit everything we threw at them. They were very aggressive and put the pressure on us defensively.”
Briskar then added, “Defensively we had a bad day with five errors. Offensively we hit the ball and hit it hard. The problem was we were caught in three double plays which took us out of the possibility of having big innings.”
The Tide venture to St. Marys on Wednesday to play Elk County Catholic (ECC) in a 4:15 pm challenge. Curwensville lost to ECC, 11-1, a few weeks ago.
WEST BRANCH – 11 Dylan Corl ss 5021, Gavin Luzier 2b 1111, Lance Yox 2b 4010, Jeremy Kanouff p 4210, Ryan Wesesky rf 4112, Chris Beveridge cf 3320, Tyler Bell 1b 4235, Adam Timchak 3b 2000, Todd Rees 3b 1000, Aaron Symosky lf 4221. TOTALS – 32 11 13 10
CURWENSVILLE – 0 Ben McGary cf 2020, Wes McGarry rf 3020, Sam Gardner p 3000, Cory Bloom c 3000, Jesse Hoover ss 2000, Brett Sutika 2b 3010, Derek Brothers 3b 2010, Mark Dell’Antonio 1b 2000, Derek Dixon dh 2000, Jed Greslick lf 0000, Tyler Johns p 0000. TOTALS – 22 0 6 0
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
WEST BRANCH 005 042 11 13 0
CURWENSVILLE 000 000 0 6 5
ERRORS – McGary, Gardner, Hoover 2, Sutika. LOB – WEST BRANCH 9 CURWENSVILLE 4. 2B – Bell. SB – McGary. SAC – Luzier
PITCHING
WEST BRANCH Kanouff 6 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 2 K
CURWENSVILLE Gardner 5 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 5 ER, 4, BB, 5; K Johns 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
WP – Kanouff LP – Gardner (3-3)
