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Western Reserve holds off Lowellville’s big rally
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Parker Clegg slides home to score for Western Reserve as Lowellville’s Nick Micco loses the ball.
STRUTHERS
In the first four innings of its baseball game with Lowellville, Western Reserve was pretty clean.
Starting pitcher Jordan White coasted, striking out five Rockets and only allowing four hits. The Blue Devils were nursing an 8-1 lead and things were looking up.
Up — at the home line of the Cene Park scoreboard.
Lowellville caught fire and rattled off eight unanswered runs in the fifth and sixth innings.
Reserve needed a big inning of its own and got it in the seventh with five runs for the 13-9 win.
“We were kind of playing a little relaxed,” said Tommy Marlowe, the Blue Devils’ catcher. “We should’ve been into the game more. We let it slip away from us too much.”
During the Rockets rally, Reserve committed four errors which opened up their scoring chances. The Devils had to get the game back in their hands with their bats.
Down 9-8 in the top of the seventh, Reserve was bringing up its 3-4-and-5 hitters, Thomas Benyo, Parker Clegg and Marlowe.
“That’s exactly how you want it to be in that situation,” WR coach Ed Anthony said.
Benyo knocked a single through the left side of the infield, Clegg moved him over to second and Marlowe was ready to dig in to bring them in.
The senior lined a shot over second base into center field, as Benyo and Clegg scored. Because of an errant throw, Marlowe advanced to third and the Blue Devils (2-3) had the lead back — for good.
“It was time to deliver,” Marlowe said. “I like hitting with nobody out and runners on because I’m going to swing hard.”
Marlowe scored on a Nick Allison single and Cole Smith and Brandon Deal came around to close off a five-run seventh.
“Our kids hit the ball very well when they needed to,” Anthony said. “We had a good approach there at the end to make up for a couple of bad innings.”
It wasn’t over, though.
Allison came on to relieve White in the fifth after four runs had scored. In the sixth, the Rockets plated three runs even though only one was attributed to Allison. Still, the sophomore was nervous. He knew the Rockets were capable of getting back in it because, frankly, they had before.
“I was a little bit worried going into the seventh because I didn’t throw too well in the last two innings. “I just had to throw strikes and hope for the best.”
He sent them down in order to preserve the victory.
“I just had to calm myself down,” he said. “I couldn’t press too hard; just throw it how I wanted to.”
Clegg and Marlowe each scored three runs and Benyo knocked a stand-up triple in the third.
Up until the fifth, Lowellville began each inning with an out. Phil Albano started that rally, leading off with a single. Spiro Schialdon, Joey Smith, Randy Pavlicko and Nick Micco also reached base and scored.
“Their adrenaline was going,” said Rockets coach Benji Santiago. “They saw they could score some runs and their confidence picked back up. I just told them to show some pride. You never want to get blown out.”
Dave Wiley picked up two hits for Lowellville (4-4), including a triple that turned into an inside the park home run, by way of an error.