May 2, 2016 3 min read

HOUSTON – One of the important lessons Chartiers-Houston’s baseball team learned Monday was that it’s not a good idea to give Brownsville an early lead.

It’s been one of the traits of the Bucs this season, falling behind early, but in most cases they’ve have managed to overcome it.

Yesterday would not be one of those times.

The Falcons jumped on Chartiers-Houston starter Ryan Mele for three first-inning runs, then knocked him out of the game during a six-run fifth inning in a 9-2 victory at Allison Elementary School.

The victory clinched the Section 2-AA title, the ninth time in Scott Roebuck’s tenure as head coach and the 12th such accomplishment since the mid-1960s.

Brownsville, which is 11-0 in the section and 13-3 overall, has only one section game remaining: a Wednesday matchup against Beth-Center at Washington & Jefferson’s Ross Memorial Park.

Chartiers-Houston (8-3, 12-4) can finish no worse than second place in the section.

“We’ve been playing from behind all year,” said C-H head coach Vince Capozza. “That’s fairly typical for us to get behind, then rally. You have to hand it to Brownsville because they scored six runs (in the fifth inning) with two outs. We had a bobble in the outfield, missed a couple cutoffs and allowed them to (advance) a couple bases. You can’t do that, but it is what it is and you move on.”

The top of the first began innocently enough, with a walk to Tyler Herman, before Jaryn Addis and Cory Lent hit back-to-back doubles – two of six in the game for Brownsville – to make it 2-0. Lent stole third base and came home on Travis Bevard’s sacrifice fly.

“It’s always important to score first,” said Roebuck. “It should settle our pitcher down, though it really didn’t. He threw too many balls. It’s important to jump on good teams and Chartiers-Houston is a good team. If you put a 3-spot up on them, it’s big.”

Chartiers-Houston had opportunities before the fifth inning, especially over the first three when the Bucs stranded a combined six runners on base, two in each of the first three innings. In the process, they cut the lead to 3-2 by scoring a run in the second and third innings.

Jordan Davis singled and came around to score on one of three Dylan Brosky’s five wild pitches. In the third inning, T.J. Johnston walked, moved to second on a fielder’s choice, then scored on two more wild pitches by Brosky.

“He shows that he’s a sophomore sometimes,” said Roebuck. “With the lead, he just needed to throw some strikes. He threw too many pitches but he battled through it.”

Brownsville stretched the lead to 9-2 with the fifth inning outburst. Lent drew a two-out walk and stole second base, Bevard singled him home, and Zach Bashour and Josh Davison hit back-to-back RBI doubles to make it 5-0. Brady Bagwell singled in Davison and Colton Dellarose doubled in two more before being picked off second base to end the inning.

“Brownsville is a good team and they can score runs,” Capozza said. “To be honest, I think we underachieved. There was no one who fielded that well, or hit that well or pitched that well. You can’t really win that way.”