Millionaires end Wildcat 13-game streak with 4-2 win
WILLIAMSPORT, PA – The first inning, it turns out, proved to be the difference as Williamsport held off the Central Mountain baseball team, the final score 4-2 in favor of the Millionaires in a game played under blue Saturday skies at Logue Field.
The loss was the first of the season for the Wildcats after 13 straight wins dating back to late March. Williamsport meanwhile moved to 9-4 overall, 7-2 in the Heartland Conference, a game and a half behind the first place Wildcats, now 9-1 in the Heartland.
The first inning was a good one for Williamsport, not so good for the visitors. Central Mountain loaded the bases in the top of the first, using two walks and a hit batter. But Millionaire starter Griffin Vollmer picked up a full-count strikeout to end the inning, three ‘Cats left stranded.
Williamsport wasted little time to score their four runs. Coen Britton walked and Deacon Brown singled. After a strike out from Wildcat starter Chase Brush, Cayden Robertson singled in the first Billtown score. Another walk followed, then a 2-run single from Aden Aldenderfer, followed by a Lucas Naughton sacrifice fly. Brush steadied after the first and went another 3.2 innings, surrendering only two singles and no more runs before leaving with two outs in the fifth. Dallas Alexander finished up with a scoreless, hitless 1.1 innings of work.
Meanwhile Millionaire starter Griffin Vollmer kept the Wildcats at bay into the sixth inning with a variety of pitches, surrendering three singles through the first five. CM began its run in the sixth. Cru Stover opened the inning with a single and was replaced on the bases by Elek Fravel who grounded into a fielder’s choice. Levi Schlesinger scorched a double to left and Connor Foltz nubbed a single to the right side of the infield. scoring Fravel and Schlesinger to third. Then came a key play. With one out, Braylen Corter hit a fly ball to Cole Shuler in right field. Schlesinger tagged and crossed the plate before the ball arrived for what appeared to be a sacrifice fly RBI. But Williamsport claimed to the home plate umpire that Schlesinger left third base too soon and the appeal was upheld, despite a different view of the call in the minds of the Wildcat coaches. Instead of a second run in and two outs and a runner on base, the inning was over and the Millionaires led, 4-1.
That call loomed even larger in the top of the seventh when Wildcats Gardy Fravel and Nate Helms drilled singles; at that point Ethan Eckard replaced Vollman on the mound. That final inning threat did produce CM’s final run. After two were out, Stover laced an RBI single but Williamsport reliever Ethan Eckard got a strikeout to end the game.
Brush finished with 4.2 innings of work, giving up five hits and four runs, striking out 10 and walking four. The left Vollman went 6.1 innings, giving up eight hits and two runs, striking out six, walking two and hitting one.
Kevin Grenninger had two singles and a stolen base for the Wildcats, Stover with two singles and Foltz with two Schlesinger had a double and Helms a single.
Wildcat coach Mike Kramer said he liked the effort from his team battling adversity and not giving up. “We never gave up and fought to the end.”
It gets no easier for the Wildcats: a Monday game at Bellefonte (11-3), the Mountain League leader.
CM 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 = 2-8-0
W 4 0 0 0 0 0 x = 4-5-0
