Apr 15, 2016 4 min read

As much as Luke Mollis stressed situational hitting for Charleroi early this season, big hits had been few and far between. Runners were stranded and it led to back-to-back losses to start Section 2-AA play for the Cougars.

Even junior shortstop Errict Tedrow, who hit a team-high .533 last season, couldn’t come up with a big hit. A little adjustment and a short memory changed that.

Tedrow drilled a two-run double down the left-field line in Charleroi’s five-run eighth inning, pushing the Cougars to a 10-6 win over Washington in a Section 2-AA game at Colt Field in Washington Park Thursday.

Tedrow struck out looking in the first inning but finished 4-for-5 with two runs. After Sam Pager reached on an error and Josh Mavilla double to left-center field to start the eighth, Tedrow nailed an inside fastball to score two runs.

“I don’t like to think much at the plate,” Tedrow said. “I just knew it was a big at-bat. The first pitch I saw, my eyes lit up and just swung like I know how.”

The Cougars (1-2, 4-3) scored two more runs on throwing errors and freshman second baseman Dakota Romantino, who went 3-for-3 with two RBI and reached safely in his five plate appearances, drove in another run on an RBI bunt single for a 10-5 lead.

Charleroi stranded 13 runners on base, including leaving the bases loaded in the first and third innings.

“We’ve been struggling at the plate pretty bad,” Mollis said. “Even in this game, I thought we should have blown it open. We finally have some guys breaking out. We had slumps going on with some of our better hitters, so it’s good to see that maybe coming to an end.”

The Cougars weren’t the only ones squandering opportunities. Wash High (2-3, 2-4) stranded 10 on base, but two big innings almost led to a win. The Prexies trailed by two runs entering the sixth before Nate Swart hit a two-out single and Jordan Swart followed with a double to left-center field.

Jordan West, who went 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBI, followed with a two-run double to tie the game. Both teams were scoreless in the seventh until Charleroi took advantage of three Wash High errors to score five runs in the eighth.

In the bottom half of the inning, West hit a two-out single and Kurt Adkins, who went 2-for-3, doubled to center field to cut the deficit to four. Pager, who pitched the final four innings, got Steve Shallcross to ground out to end the game.

Pager earned the win with four strikeouts and one walk in four innings, while junior Emery Anden struck out four in four innings to start the game.

“They executed what they wanted to do. They were just better than we were,” Wash High head coach Rocky Plassio said. “This is like the third or fourth time where we were so close, but for some reason we aren’t going over the edge or finding a way to finish it. It’s tough to swallow.”

Though Wash High’s defense excelled for most of the game, its pitching gave Charleroi a lift. The Prexies’ four pitchers combined to walk nine and hit three batters. The wildness helped the Cougars grab an early 2-0 lead.

Wash High’s offense got a lift from back-to-back one-out singles by Isaiah Perry and Jackson Interval before Kevin Patterson and Nate Swart drove in each to tie the score.

The Cougars added two more runs in the third inning on a bases-loaded walk and an error, and unlike in their previous games, the entire order contributed.

Romantino and fellow freshman Cole Perry combined to go 3-for-5 with three RBI in the eight and nine spots in the batting order, and it was the former who drove in a much-needed insurance run in the sixth.

The slump officially came to an end when Tedrow capped his game with the big two-run double.

“This is a big win. We didn’t want to start the season buried (in the standings),” Mollis said. “This gets us back on the right track. The last couple years we started slow and finished strong, but it was too late. That was when they were all younger though, so now they should know that.”