Blue Mountain forces an extra game, tops Keystone 12ers 8-1

By Tom Elling

POTTSVILLE, PA – It wasn’t the game Coach Ben Falls had expected. A win would have sent his team to Bradford next week for the Pennsylvania state championships. If that be the case, the team will have to regroup for another go Saturday at 2 p.m. when they will play the Blue Mountain team for a third time with the winner making the trek to McKean County.

Keystone had blasted Blue Mountain 11-3 just this past Wednesday. However, this was a different game.. a totally different game – which saw the Keystone team garner just two hits while committing eight errors allowing five unearned runs.

Keystone looked like they might pick up where they left off Wednesday when Ashton Falls worked a lead-off base-on-balls. Luke Nonemaker followed with an infield single, but BM pitcher Andy Blehm got the heart of the order on three straight strike outs.

The bottom of the inning was disastrous as Blue Mountain scored three runs on just one hit. It could have been worse had not the locals trapped a runner in a rundown to end the inning.

Blehm ran through the proverbial raindrops alternating strikeouts (7) and walks (4). The Keystone batters had four called third strikes and could manage just two hits – the infield single by Nonemaker and a solidly hit homerun by Hayes Donley (which turned out to be the only run Keystone would score).

Pitcher Blake King deserved a better fate as he allowed four unearned runs through four innings until tiring somewhat and giving up four hits it the 4th. He took the loss, while Blehm was the winning pitcher.

Manager Falls was disappointed in the sloppy play, but said, “In baseball, you sometimes have these games. It’s good to have it out of our system; we’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll be fine. We’ll play better. We do have 2-3 very good pitchers we can throw.”

There was a hillside of parents and fans at the Pottsville field. Look for that same group to be there again tomorrow- hoping for a game more like this past Wednesday. They will probably face the pitcher they bombed that evening.

The linescore was

1 2 3  4 5 6    R  H  E

Keystone   0 0 1  0 0 0    1  2  8

Blue Mt    3 0 1  2 2 X    8  7  2