Beth-Center walks off against Waynesburg
FREDERICKTOWN – Anyone on the Beth-Center High School baseball team can tell you how much errors can impact games.
The Bulldogs had seen it over their last two games, committing eight errors that led to a pair of losses.
However, it was Beth-Center taking advantage of mistakes Wednesday afternoon.
After a single and throwing error moved Ryan Ross to second base, and a wild pitch sent him the third, Cam Palmer turned on a two-strike pitch for a grounder that slipped through the left side of the infield in the bottom of the seventh inning, giving Beth-Center a 4-3 walk-off win over Waynesburg in a Class 3A Section 3 game.
“Our guys were aggressive all day and I kept telling them that if we get to the last at-bat with a tied game then we were going to win it,” said assistant coach Tony Molish, who was filling in for head coach Frank Pryor. “They believed and made it happen.”
The win ended the two-game losing skid for Beth-Center (4-2, 4-5). It also put an end to the Raiders’ four-game winning streak.
Palmer squared around for a sacrifice bunt on the first two pitches of his game-winning at-bat, but the wild pitch advanced a pair of runners into scoring position with no outs.
“I hadn’t bunted all year,” Palmer said after missing his two attempts. “Then it just turned into having to make solid contact and getting our guy home. I was nervous but it feels nice now.”
All four runs for the Bulldogs were off mistakes committed by Waynesburg (4-2, 5-3). Their first run came after a hit batsman moved a runner into scoring position and later came home to score. B-C scored to take a 2-1 lead on a Raiders error in the third inning. The Bulldogs’ third and fourth runs all advanced around the bases because of errors or wild pitches.
“It was the little things,” said Waynesburg coach Jamie Moore. “A couple of things don’t go your way and it can cost you a game. Overall, we got out-played.”
Beth-Center relief pitcher Drake Zellie spoiled the Raiders’ chance to blow the game wide open in the sixth inning. Called on in a bases-loaded, no-out situation after the Bulldogs already surrendered the tying run, Zellie forced an infield fly rule for the first out and struck out a batter. He then stabbed at a line drive hit by Waynesburg’s Trevor Stephenson that got stuck in the meshing of his glove for the final out of the inning, stranding the go-ahead run and leaving the bases loaded.
“(Drake) has been consistent the last few times we’ve pitched him,” Molish said. “He was the go-to guy after Anthony Dellapenna.”
Zellie retired the heart of Waynesburg’s lineup in order in the seventh to set up the walk-off situation.
“We didn’t hit the way we’ve been hitting,” Moore said. “We’ve been putting up a lot of runs. Things have been clicking.”
Kyle Blasco had two of the Raiders’ seven hits, including a triple in the fourth inning. He scored to tie the game twice, once after his leadoff triple and in the sixth inning when he led off with a single.
Andrew Bower led Beth-Center by going 3-for-3. Ross was the only other Bulldog with a multi-hit game, going 2-for-4 with a pair of singles.
“This was a huge win for us today,” Milosh said.