Knightline to play for title today at Cene Park

July 31, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

STRUTHERS

Knightline Embroidery is the only undefeated team in this year’s PONY Palomino East Zone Tournament at Bob Cene Park.

The locals will to wait until today, however, to find out if they can become this year’s East Zone representative to the upcoming World Series, which begins this week in Santa Clara, Calif.

Worthington-Kittanning advanced to the title tilt with an 11-inning, 4-3 victory over Pittsburgh North Hills before a steady rain pushed back by a day the championship contest.

Worthington-Kittanning and Knightline Embroidery will meet today at 10 a.m. for the championship with Knightline needing to win just once in order to advance to World Series play.

An “if necessary” game will follow immediately upon completion of the championship contest.

Knightline Embroidery defeated Ohio Longhorns (7-6) and Pittsburgh North Hills (1-0) on Thursday’s opening day, then followed that up with an 11-1, six-inning win early Saturday morning to remain in the winner’s bracket.

In COLT 15-U East Zone action, the Youngstown All-Stars, currently 2-0 in the tourney, were scheduled to meet McCandless, also 2-0 in the lone winners bracket game at press time.

Youngstown has defeated both Premier (14-4) and Mars (13-1), both in five innings and has outscored opponents 27-5 thus far in the tournament.

McCandless topped Butler (9-8) in their opening contest, and then followed that up with an 8-1 win over Lightning.

LATE FRIDAY

KNIGHTLINE EMBROIDERY 11, WORTHINGTON-KITTANNING 1

Knightline Embroidery defeated Worthington-Kittanning, 11-1 in six innings in the remaining winner’s bracket contest.

The game concluded at 1:25 a.m. Saturday morning due to an amended rain schedule with Knightline taking the early 1-0 lead in the second frame.

They added three more runs in the fourth on run scoring singles by both Bryce Richey and J.T. Wolke, and then put the game away in the sixth by sending 10 batters to the plate and scoring the final seven runs of the game.

Starting pitcher Dom Michael picked up the win by going five and two-thirds innings, striking out seven and scattering seven hits.

Anthony Cinicola paced Knightline with four hits and RBIs; Wolke added three safeties hits Jake Kaschak and Mark Herron each had two.

NORTH HILLS 6, YOUNGTOWN ALL-STARS 5

The Youngstown All-Stars were eliminated by North Hills, 6-5 as they dropped both of their tourney contests.

North Hills scored three times in the first inning and made it a 5-2 game after three frames.

A single by Dom Bucko and sacrifice fly John Mathews netted a pair of runs for Youngstown in the fourth inning to cut the margin to 5-4.

North Hills extended their lead to 6-4 in the sixth stanza while Sam Ireland’s ground out plated Josh Anderson in their half of the inning to cut the lead to 6-5.

Anderson and Bucko each had two hits for Youngstown with Bucko also knocking in two runs.

COLT 15 EAST ZONE TOURNAMENT

YOUNGSTOWN ALL-STARS 13, MARS 1

The Youngstown All-Stars won their second straight game and remained in the winners bracket with a 13-1, five-inning win over Mars.

Leading 6-1 after four innings, Youngstown sent 11 batters to the plate in the fifth frame, scoring seven times to force an early ending.

Dylan Keller went the route for the local tournament entry, allowing just two hits to pick up the win.

Devin Turvey, Braden Olsen, and Tyler Hurd had two hits while Turvey knocked in four runs and Bobby Cavalier added two RBIs for Youngstown.