Wildcats Claim District Title, Kramer Gets 300th Win

By Joe Walker

WINGATE – It has been said that in baseball timely hitting and good defense can win you a lot of games, well the Central Mountain Wildcats used both to hand the Golden Tigers of Hollidaysburg a 9-5 defeat and claim the District 6 Class 5A championship on the Bald Eagle Area High School Field. 

The Wildcats pounded out seven timely hits in the first three innings to build up a 7-1 lead, while the defense helped out their pitching by turning two double plays in the first three frames to support the offense. 

The Wildcats struck for a pair of runs in the bottom of first inning, as Brady Lavelle, Watt Probst, Malaky Moyd and Nate Wian all hit singles to give the home team Wildcats a quick 2-0 lead. The Wildcats made it 3-0 in the second inning, as Felix Oquendo doubled and scored on a single by Lavelle. 

The Tigers cut the lead to 3-1 in the top of the third innings, as Wildcat starter Austin Frank walked Gavin Bell and Ty Szynal to open the inning. Both runners advanced a base on a wild pitch and then Bell scored on a ground out by Josh Banks. Wildcat shortstop Jace Seltzer then fielded a ground ball, touched second base for a force out and then threw to first base in time to complete the double play to end the inning. 

The Wildcats came right back and answered that run with four more runs in the bottom of the third inning. Watt Probst led off with a triple, Bryce Brungard reached on an error, which scored Probst. Oquendo singled and Seltzer reached by fielder’s choice to lead the bases. Isaiah Maldonaldo walked to score Brungard and then Lavelle singled to score Oquendo and Seltzer to make it a 7-1 Wildcat lead. 

The Golden Tigers then cut the lead to 7-4 by tallying three runs in the top of the fourth, as they tallied up four singles and a hit batter to score the three and still have the bases loaded after receiving a walk. Wildcat Head Coach then brought in Darius Shade to relieve starter Austin Frank and Shade got a ground out to end the rally. 

The Tigers kept chipping away at the Wildcat lead, as Shade surrendered three straight singles in the top of the fifth inning to cut the Wildcat lead to 7-5. He then got a groundout and then a strikeout to end another Tigers rally. 

Just when it looked like the Tigers were going to rally back against the Wildcats, Maldonaldo reached base on a Tiger error and then junior Blake Walker promptly stepped to the plate and blasted a two-run home run to put the Wildcats up 9-5 and got the momentum back on their side. 

The Tigers tried to get a rally going again the top half of the seventh inning, as they had two runners on back with just one out, but Malaky Moyd caught a pop foul ball along the right field sideline fence and Shadle nailed it down with a strikeout and sent the Wildcats into the PIAA Class 5A state playoffs.

Austin Frank got the mound win, as he worked the first 3 ⅔ innings, as he allowed just four hits, two strikeouts, but surrendered five walks and hit one batter. The big thing Frank did though was keep the Tigers hitting infield ground balls and allowing the defense to make the big double plays and kept the Tigers from any extra base hits. 

Shade came on in relief and like he had done a few other times this season, he held the Tigers to just one run and one hit over the final 3 ⅓ innings. Shade allowed just four hits as well, while fanning two batters and he did hit two batters. Shade also did not allow a fly ball to the outfield and thus no extra base hits. 

Lavelle led the Wildcat offense by going 3 for 4 and three RBI’s, while Probst and Oquendo both had two hits, Probst with a triple and Oquendo with a double. Walker provided the big blast with his two run home run, his sixth of the season. Moyd and Nate Wian both added a single apiece in the Wildcats 10 hit attack. 

“The defense really played well today, as we were able to score early, the defense came up with plays to keep them (Hollidaysburg) from scoring early and allowed us to build up the quick 7-1 lead. Then when they started to chip away on our lead you got a little concerned, but we got the big hit from Blake (Walker) which got the momentum back to us,” commented Head Coach Mike Kramer after the win. 

“Austin (Frank) didn’t have his best stuff today and had trouble getting one of his best pitches over, but he worked through it and kept getting them to just hit ground balls and that allowed the defense to come up big. Darius {Shade) like Austin is a bulldog, as he came in and got us out of a bases loaded jam and then only allowed the lone run,” added Kramer. 

“Every time we made some really good defensive plays to stop a rally or they would score some runs, we came right back and scored runs to answer. We have to keep doing that, we have to respond offensively to keep the momentum on our side,” stated Kramer 

“We will wait and see who and where we play on Monday, but we just have to keep doing what we have been doing and that is not looking down the road just concentrating on the game and task directly in front of us,” continued Kramer 

The Wildcats are now 16-1 on the season and will wait to face the loser of the District 7 championship between Pine Richland (21-3) and Shaler (15-6), which was to be played Tuesday night at 7 pm. 

NOTE: The win by the Wildcats gave Mike Kramer his 300th win as the head coach of the Wildcats, as he is now 300-195 as the Wildcat head coach. Kramer was 82-65 in his eight seasons at Bald Eagle-Nittany before taking over the Wildcat program. He is now 382-260 in his overall career and of course is also the only Central Mountain Head Coach that has been in charge of his program since the very beginning of Central Mountain High School.