Keystone Dominates Plains 13-1 at States

AdminJuly 28, 2015

3 minutes read

By Tom Fox
Special to The Record

FLEETVILLE – Daren Stover couldn’t have asked for a better start.

The Keystone 9-10 manager preserved pitching, and those hot bats didn’t lose any steam from last week’s dominating performance at the Section 3 tournament in Pine Grove.

Matt Conkin’s enormous two-run homer to straight-away center jump-started the Keystone offense in the opening inning, and a trio of pitchers held a powerful Plains squad to just three hits en route to a 13-1, four-inning victory in the opening round of the state tournament Tuesday night at Christy Mathewson Little League.

Keystone advances into Wednesday’s 5:30 p.m. semifinals against Upper Providence.

“You never want to look past the game you are in, obviously, but you want to work through the tournament as best as you can. We are fortunate that we are pretty deep in pitching. We have confidence in each kid that we put out there,” said Stover, the Keystone manager.

While the score tells the story of how Keystone did with the bat, it was the pitching that took center stage.

Cru Stover, Levi Schlesinger and Braylen Corter combined on the three-hitter, and were pretty dominating with five strikeouts in four innings of work.

How impressive was it?

Considering the Section 5 champ scored almost 60 runs in sectional play last week in Scranton, and hung an 18-spot on Mountain Top in the District 16 title tilt, pretty good is an understatement.

“There isn’t a lot of drop-off when we go from one guy to another,” Daren Stover said. “At this tournament, it’s big because you play a lot of games. It’s huge to have that depth.”

Plains scored its lone run in the first inning when Braedon Cook drew an opening walk, and later crossed home on a wild pitch.

Ironically, that was the only inning where Keystone pitchers ran into trouble.

Plains was set down in order in the second and fourth innings, and Schlesinger and Corter combined for three strikeouts in the third.

“I think getting out of that first inning with just one run was huge,” Daren Stover said. “Plus, I think scoring all those runs in the first helped to take some pressure off.”
Keystone had no problems scoring.

The momentum-shifting blast come off Conklin’s bat, whose two-run shot scored Cru Stover to give the blue and white its first lead at 2-1.

“It felt good to start the state tournament with a home run,” said Conklin, who finished with three RBI on the night. “I didn’t know it was gone because I hit it off the handle, but it went flying over.”

It led to four straight two-out hits as Schlesinger, Corter, Ashton Probst and Brayden Blackwell all had singles.

When it was all said and done, Keystone had a 5-1 lead – an advantage it wouldn’t relinquish.

“That home run definitely helped,” Daren Stover said. “It was nice because all those hits came with two outs. We preach that a lot. Those two-out runs are so big at this level. It was fun to watch.”

Keystone increased the lead to 7-1 after two, thanks to RBI by Cru Stover and Chase Brush, and put together a six-run third inning fueled by seven walks issued by Plains’ pitchers.

As a matter of fact, four runs crossed home on bases-loaded free passes and another scored when Cru Stover was hit by a pitch with the bases still full of Keystoners.

Schlesinger had two hits, including a double, while Brush, Conklin, Corter, Probst and Blackwell had the remaining rips for the Clinton County squad.

Cru Stover picked up the victory, throwing just 1 1-3 innings.

WP – Stover. LP – Kozerski. HR: Conklin. 2B: Schlesinger.