Wildcats stay perfect, edge Seals 1-0
MILL HALL, PA – Monday’s Heartland Conference baseball game at Mill Hall Community Park had all the trappings of a playoff contest. It featured defending PIAA 5A state runner-up Selinsgrove and defending District 6 5A champion Central Mountain.
For Selinsgrove it was a must-win game in Heartland play as they trailed the Wildcats by a game heading into the showdown, CM having won back in late March by a 7-3 score in Selinsgrove. Monday saw the Wildcats move their league lead to two games as they ground out a 1-0, last inning win over their down river visitors.
The contest was a pitchers’ dual into the bottom of the seventh, Cru Stover and Chase Brush putting up goose-eggs for the Wildcats and Ben Gearhart and Tyler Swineford doing likewise for the Seals.
Levi Schlesinger began the bottom of the final inning with a shot off the third baseman for an infield single. Connor Foltz put down a bunt to try and advance Schlesinger to second. The Seal catcher tried to force out Schlesinger at second but his throw pulled the fielder off the bag, the official scorer calling it a hit; two runners on and no one out. After Braylen Corter flied out, Nate Helms drilled a single to right field, easily scoring Schlesinger for the game-winning walk-off hit.
Meanwhile the game’s four pitchers were exceptional. The two Seal hurlers held the Wildcats, until the seventh, to two singles, a pop fly hit from Gabe Johnson in the first and an infield single from Corter in the fifth. Stover and Brush were equally dominant. Stover went the first 4.2 innings, giving up four hits, striking out six and walking four. Brush came on in the fifth and with two runners on, gave up a walk to load the bases, followed by an inning-ending flyout to left to end the frame. Brush went on to pitch perfect sixth and seventh innings to set up the Wildcat winning score in the bottom of the seventh.
The Wildcats are now 11-0, 9-0 in the Heartland. They go out of the conference Wednesday, hosting Bald Eagle Area (9-2). The Eagles own an 11-10 win over Selinsgrove, a game played on April 14. CM finishes play this week with a trip to Shamokin (1-11) on Friday,
Wildcat coach Mike Kramer again complimented his team for its response to pressure. He said Helms, as he stepped into the batter’s box with the game on the line, looked knowingly at him, then delivered the game-winning hit. He praised his mound duo, noting that Stover had his “command working for him” and Brush, as he had done against Williamsport in a 3-1 win last week, “slammed the door.”
S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 0-4-0
CM 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 = 1-4-0
