Girard-Liberty neighborhood battle ends tied

The teams played to a 2-2 tie before the contest was halted after seven innings.
By PETE MOLLICA
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
LIBERTY -- Liberty and Girard are neighborhood rivals in the Trumbull Athletic Conference and their high school baseball teams battled to a 2-2 tie Friday before umpires called the game after seven innings.
Liberty coach Ray Wells was surprised by the umpires' decision.
"I can't believe they called the game," Wells said. "There is still plenty of daylight; in fact it is probably lighter now than it was two innings ago. They just said 'that's it' and left."
Liberty's Billy Markowitz and Girard's John Nastase locked horns in a good pitchers battle.
Markowitz went five innings and allowed just four hits while striking out nine batters.
Williams homers
One of the hit he allowed was a two-run homer to Tom Williams in the second inning as the Indians jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
Nastase pitched into the sixth inning and allowed 11 hits while striking out six. He also was tagged for a solo home run off the bat of Rick Lopez in the third inning.
"We've been getting pretty good pitching and have been hitting the ball well, but errors have been killing us this season," Wells said.
The Leopards didn't make an error.
Liberty couldn't take advantage of their opportunities. They had a runner or runners in scoring position in every inning, but tallied just twice.
The Indians struggled against Markowitz. Other than the home run by Williams, they threatened only two other times.
In the first inning, Girard had runners on second and third with one out thanks to a balk by Markowitz, but couldn't score.
In the second, Markowitz walked Dan O'Neill to open the inning, struck out the next two batters and then hung a curve ball to Williams who dumped it over the left-field fence.
In Liberty's second inning, the Leopards had runners on first and third with one out, When Mike Brown took off for second base, Marc Doblanski broke for home and was thrown out at the plate.
Lopez drilled a Nastase pitch into deep left-center field for his home run to cut the lead to one run in the third.
Leopards tie contest
Liberty tied the game in the fourth with two outs as Nastase hit Randy Burgett and Aaron Pollack and Rick Lopez singled to score Burgett.
In the sixth inning, Nastase gave up back-to-back singles to Pollack and Rick Lopez with one out before Mike Holmes came on in relief.
Holmes got Joe Lopez to hit into a forceout at third, walked Mike Smallwood and got Fred Battisti to hit in an inning-ending force out.
Markowitcz gave way to Battisti in the sixth inning and Girard got to him in the seventh inning.
With one out, Battisti hit Williams, who was then erased on a fielder's choice. After Fred Barton singled to put runners on second and third, Battisti struck out Nick Canterino to end the inning.
Pollack and Rick Lopez each had three hits for the Leopards, while Doblanski added a pair of singles.
Barton had three of Girard's five hits while Canterino added a double.