JFK turns triple play, but can’t solve Trinity
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WARREN -- John F. Kennedy hurler A.J. Arp wasn't giving much away in terms of hits against Garfield Heights Trinity on Monday evening.
To that end, the Trojans had to get creative to topple the Eagles, 3-1, in North Coast League White Division action at JFK.
Trinity plated three unearned runs to beat Arp, who allowed just four hits in taking the loss.
"We stole a lot of bases today," Trinity coach George Hohman said. "Some of the guys lower in the lineup were putting the ball in play. I preach all the time that when you put the ball in play, good things will happen. That's been our M.O. this year."
Arp struck out three, walked three and hit a batter for Kennedy (5-3, 1-1).
John Oleksik drew a two-out walk, stole second in the top of the second and scored from there on an error to put the Trojans up, 1-0. In the fourth, Kevin McSweeney smacked a lead-off single, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on another wild pitch to make it 2-0 in favor of the Trojans (12-1, 4-1).
In the seventh, Jack DiPronio reached on an error to start the inning, stole second and moved to third on a balk. He scored on a sacrifice fly from Noah Salem for Trinity's third and final run.
"They stole bases off our pitcher," Kennedy coach Don Lee said. "They got three unearned runs. They didn't have an error and we had three. You can't give up runs like that."
The Eagles got back-to-back singles from Ryan Galle and Michael Klaben to open the home half of the seventh. Galle scored on Neil McGee's sacrifice fly for JFK's lone run.
Clay Anderson scattered eight hits and struck out seven while walking one in a complete-game victory.
"We got a great pitching performance from Clay Anderson," Hohman said. "That was an excellent pitching performance.
"Clay is a bulldog. He gets better as the game goes on. Today was one of those examples. We were talking about who we'd bring on in relief in the fourth and fifth innings. He got stronger as the game went on. Our catcher (Collin Hohman) calls all the pitches for us. None of the coaches are involved. There's a good chemistry between the starting pitchers and the catcher."
"I think he had a pretty good slider," Lee said. "We were swinging at a lot of pitches in the dirt. He managed to get ahead. He got ahead and he was able to play around a bit (with his pitches)."
In the fourth, Kennedy loaded the bases on consecutive singles from Ryan Lee, Greg Valent and Isaac Hadley, but the next two hitters flew out and Anderson got a strikeout to end the threat.
"We outhit them, 8-4," Lee said. "We had the bases loaded with nobody out and didn't get the run across. We hit the ball hard twice and got nothing out of it."
"In that inning, our left fielder and center fielder charged in, played the ball and were in position to make a great throw," Hohman said. "We just played good, sound baseball. Clay hit his spots. We were pretty confident once we got two outs that we'd get through it."
The Trojans loaded the bases with nobody out in the fifth, but the Eagles recorded a triple play. Collin Hohman flew out to center and the Eagles' Lee caught Noah Salem ranging too far from the bag and threw him out before Valent fired home to catcher Ryan Galle, who tagged out Mike Robertson as Robertson tried to run him over.
"How often do you see a triple play?" Lee asked. "There were some bang-bang plays. They did the same (in ending our bases-loaded threat). They made the plays. If you stop and think about it, it was a good ballgame."
"This team does a great job responding to adversity," Hohman said. "We were playing St. Thomas Aquinas last year and were down, 7-1, at their place. We came back and ended up winning, 8-7. We're a good strong team and we only had two seniors in the lineup today."
Lee, Hadley and Galle all had two hits for the Eagles.