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Poland survives AAC battle
Photo
Poland shortstop Nicholas Maillis (25) scoops the ball and prepares to toss it to second base to force an out in the third inning of Monday’s game against Austintown Fitch. The Bulldogs won the AAC game 13-11.
By BRANDON JUDEH
Poland
The Austintown Fitch baseball team overcame a seven-run deficit on Monday night, but Poland recovered for a 13-11 victory in the All-American Conference.
Poland quickly jumped out to a 6-0 lead and soon turned it into a 10-3 lead.
A walk and a double by Scott Pierce set up a big fourth inning for the Falcons.
Logan Kane knocked in a run and three more scored thanks to two Bulldog errors, cutting the lead to 10-7.
“Tomorrow we are going to have to take more grounders and keep practicing and working on our defense,” said Poland coach Rich Murray.
“We have guys out there who can make plays and they have made them before. I don’t know what was going on today.”
In the fifth inning it was more of the same for Poland as they committed three errors, which led to four more runs and gave Fitch its first lead of the game at 11-10. In the bottom half of the inning Poland regained the lead.
Nicholas Andrews knocked in a run off of a sacrifice fly and a throwing error gave the lead back to Poland. Moments later the Falcons committed another error that scored Colin Reardon to put the Bulldogs up for good.
“We let them back in the game, we booted a few, but they were hitting the ball well. We had to use most of our pitching staff to get through the game,” Murray said.
Early in the game the Bulldogs jumped out to a 6-0 lead by stringing together two walks, two singles and taking advantage of two errors to grab the second-inning lead.
The big inning knocked Falcons starter Austin Cooper out of the game. In all, Fitch used four pitchers.
Reardon, Andrews and Nicholas Maillis all picked up RBI singles in the huge inning.
The third inning was no different for the Bulldogs as they scored four more runs to push the lead up to seven.
Perhaps the biggest at-bat came in the third when Conner Schultheis came up with the bases loaded and crushed a bases clearing double into center field that gave his team the comfortable lead.
“The pitcher gave me a curveball and I followed through with it and all the guys on base really hustled and got home,” Schultheis said.
Schultheis had a big game, going 2 for 4 with four RBIs and reaching base four times. Also contributing to the Bulldogs’ offensive attack were Reardon with two hits and an RBI, and Andrews knocked in two runs.
Jacob Moffo came in and pitched strong for the Bulldogs on his way to picking up the victory.
For the Falcons, Alex Sierra had two RBIs and Zarek Bell notched two hits.
“I booted some balls over at third base today, but my guys stuck with me and this team has a bunch of resilient kids and we are all starting to figure it out,” said Schultheis.