Belle Vernon wins regional

Connellsville scored five runs in the bottom of the 7th to make things interesting, but Belle Vernon was able to hold on for a 9-8 win.

When the Belle Vernon Senior Legion baseball team dropped the Fayette County championship to Connellsville last week, head coach Tom Jackson said that he would much rather win the Region 6 title and that Connellsville might be the team to beat.

A week later, Belle Vernon (18-2) defeated Connellsville, 9-8, to earn the regional championship Monday at Chippewa Park in Beaver Falls.

“(That’s) 18-2, this has been a historic year,” Jackson said. “It’s the first time for Belle Vernon winning the regular season and winning the region. It goes out to the kids. Belle Vernon kids, EF kids, one Ringgold kid. You can’t ask for anything more. They come out and play hard every single game, you’ve seen it all summer.

“Hats off to Connellsville, they are a hell of a team. They never stopped trying to win.”

JB Crovak pitched a strong game for Belle Vernon in the win, giving up just two hits before he hit the 105-pitch limit with one out left to win the game.

He left the game with runners on second and third, but the score was only 9-3 as Connellsville once again showed its resilience.

“It just wasn’t meant to be today,” said Connellsville manager Brian Sankovich. “I feel bad for the guys that will be gone because we’ve been together for a while. Coming back, this is something that we’ll have to build on.

“This is a veteran group; they’ve been down before. Baseball is up and down. We knew we’re never out of the game, and we battled until the bitter end.”

Belle Vernon defeated Connellsville, 6-2, Sunday to advance to the title-clinching game in the double- elimination tournament.

Connellsville rebounded for a walk-off win over host Blackhawk to get into the championship round. It would have had to beat Belle Vernon twice Monday to win the title.

After a scoreless opening frame in Monday’s contest, Austin Hoffman came up with a double down the third-base line to set up Crovak with one out. The pitcher came up and lined out to Anthony Piasecki at third before Jaxson Bozek hit a deep fly ball caught by left fielder Jake Lee to retire the side with a runner at second.

Piasecki prevented a 1-2-3 second for Connellsville by drawing a twoout walk, but Crovak struck out fellow pitcher Matthew Miller to move the action to the third frame.

Miller was tagged with the loss as he eventually gave up eight hits and seven runs in 5 1/3 innings.

Charlie Nigut, who finished 2 for 3 with three RBIs, earned the second hit of the contest but Miller got through the side as both pitchers were dialed in to start the contest despite light rain throughout.

Connellsville managed to put runners on first and second in the bottom of the fourth as they still hadn’t managed a hit on Crovak. That changed when Kace Shearer laced a single into left field and brought Matthew Firestone home to open the scoring at 1-0.

Connellsville (15-4) broke the game open further with a lengthy atbat from Miller. After going down 0-2, he fought back and eventually hit a slow grounder to Kaden Faychak at short, but his throwing error allowed two more runs to score as the home squad took a 3-0 lead into the fifth stanza.

Belle Vernon needed a response, and they did just that in the top of the fifth with three runs to tie the game.

With one out, Cole Matusik drew a walk and Mitch Vuick singled to set up Nigut. The speedster hit a ball that dropped in front of Shearer at right field, who tried to make a sliding catch, but instead it hit the ground in front of him and kept rolling. The play allowed both runners to score and Nigut to reach third with the score 3-2.

Jake Wessel stepped up and delivered a sacrifice fly to knot the contest up at three.

After three quick outs for Connellsville, Belle Vernon found life on offense as Hoffman, Crovak and Bozek all singled with one out to load the bases. That brought Matusik to the plate, and he crushed a fly ball to left off the fence to score two runners to give Belle Vernon its first advantage of the game at 5-3.

The big play prompted a pitching change for Connellsville as Grayden Gillott inherited runners at second and third. However, he plunked Vuick with his first pitch to load the bases again and bring up Nigut. He tallied another RBI by drawing a 10-pitch walk to score a run and keep the bases juiced.

Wessel then ripped a hard ground ball heading down the third-base line that Piasecki got his glove to but couldn’t quite corral as it rolled a few feet to his right past third base and allowed another run to score. The single gave Wessel his second RBI of the contest and made it 7-3.

Gillott managed his first out of the game against Faychak, but his deep fly out allowed another run to tag up and score as Connellsville trailed 8-3 going into the bottom of the sixth.

After a 1-2-3 inning moved it over to the seventh, Belle Vernon loaded the bases with no outs and scored one more run to cap off the scoring.

Crovak hit the 105-pitch mark during his second out of the final inning, so AJ Wardropper entered the contest to collect an out, but Connellsville refused to go away.

An error and a balk scored two runs before Lee doubled to the wall to score two more and Shearer doubled to score Lee. That left the score at 9-8 with a runner on second, but Wardropper finally forced a groundout to end the contest and give Belle Vernon the regional championship.

Up next for this Belle Vernon team is a shot at the state tournament.

“We’re gonna go into states with 11 kids, but they’re all ballplayers,” Jackson said. “We’re playing the East Regional 5 team first, usually Greater Pittston is out of that region. They’re always strong. We’ve just gotta jump on them.”

For Connellsville, they’ll hope to be back next year. “Baseball is a funny game,” Sankovich said. “Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way, and it didn’t. That’s why we’re going home and they’re going to states.”