Aug 12, 2017 4 min read

After nearly four innings of becoming increasingly stumped and frustrated as they walked back to the dugout suffering the same fate, enough was enough for East Zone champion Hagerstown, Md.

Youngstown, Ohio, pitcher Jacob Gehring sent those eight Hagerstown batters back, striking them out with a dominating breaking ball.

That was until Hagerstown’s Josh Black broke the silence.

After Black’s two-out, line-drive single, Tyler Crain hit an RBI-double off the base of the left-field wall and Hagerstown scored at least one run in the final four innings to defeat Youngstown 6-1 in Friday’s second game of the Pony League World Series at Lew Hays Pony Field.

With the win, Hagerstown advances to Monday against the winner of Guasave, Mexico, and Seoul, Korea, who play at 5:30 this afternoon.

Youngstown will play in an elimination game at 2:30 p.m. Sunday against Levittown, Puerto Rico.

Hagerstown’s Kyle West broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth inning with a seeing-eye single through the left side of the infield to score David Clever, who reached on a leadoff double.

“Without a doubt their starting pitcher was the best we’ve seen all year,” said Hagerstown manager Steve Berger. “He had a nasty curveball. We were extremely fortunate. Once we were able to get him into the stretch, it affected him. We just were able to string together some key hits and our pitching took over.”

Hagerstown extended its lead in the sixth inning after Bradley Summers drew a leadoff walk and casually made his way around the bases as Youngstown committed self-inflicted mistakes. Izaiah Dillinger then launched a solo home run over the right-centerfield wall to make it 4-1.

“They had a couple of timely hits that got them into the game and then poured it on in the end like a good team should do,” said Youngstown manager Randy Dominguez. “That’s what they needed to do and it’s exactly what they did.”

A pitching change to begin the bottom half of the sixth inning led to Youngstown’s first two batters reaching base on a walk to Gehring and Cory Rose being hit in the head with a pitch.

Another pitching change brought Dillinger into a less-than-ideal situation for Hagerstown. He struck out the next two batters and got a groundout to strand the runners and keep the three-run lead.

“That was huge,” Berger said. “We kind of expect that out of him. He throws hard. He has great movement on his fastball and two different types of breaking balls. We’re used to seeing that type of performance.”

Rose was removed from the game for concussion protocol.

Hagerstown starting pitcher Summers only allowed one run through five innings while striking out four. He was able to strand three Youngstown runners on third base.

Despite getting the loss after surrendering three runs, Gehring stuck out 12 in 5 2/3 innings before being pulled after reaching 97 pitches.

In the middle of a lengthy rain delay that postponed the opening ceremony and delayed this game by nearly a half hour, Pony Baseball and Softball President Abe Key presented the former publisher of the Observer-Reporter newspaper, John Northrop, with the highest honor offered by the organization. Northrop was presented a plaque for the Wall of Fame, given to those who have made significant contributions at a local league or at the national level.

The Northrop family donated office space for the first Pony headquarters after being formed in 1951.

The opening ceremony, which will begin at the conclusion of today’s Champions League game at 10 a.m., will be followed by a game between Brownsville, Texas, and Bay County, Mich., at noon.

Washington County makes its tournament debut against The Netherlands at 2:30 p.m.