2 weeks Ago By Dave Seamon
HAZLE TWP . — For Hazleton Area, the bad news on Monday was the Cougars managed only two base hits and struck out seven times against Wilkes-Barre Area pitching ace James Bottger over the first five innings. The good news: the Cougars smacked three hits and got robbed of a fourth against the hard-throwing righthander to start a sixth-inning rally from a three-run deficit.
Even better news for the Cougars: they added three more hits off reliever Alex Hufford in that same inning and went to stun the visiting Wolfpack, 6-4, to stay on unbeaten Pittston Area’s tail in the Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 baseball title chase. “He (Bottger) had us in the first half (of the game), but we battled. .
.. That’s what we’ve been doing all season.
...
We’re battled-tested,” said senior first baseman Ryan Racho, who ignited the winning rally with an opposite-field double. “Our previous teams, we used to blow teams out (but) not this year. .
..We’re playing in a lot more close games, which is a good thing going into the (District 2) playoffs.
” Or, even in a conference game that the Cougars (7-3, 6-1 WVC) needed to win to snap a deadlock with Wilkes-Barre Area for second place in Division 1 and stay one game behind Pittston Area. “That’s our game — we have to do whatever it takes to get on base and score,” Racho said. Following Racho’s double down the leftfield line leading off the home sixth and a wild pitch, Nick Ledger’s second of two RBI groundouts — this one on a stellar defensive play by Wolfpack shortstop Jake Howe — plated Racho to pull the Cougars within 4-2.
Consecutive singles by Shea Higgins and Dom Marino finished Bottger’s day on the mound as the future West Chester University hurler reached his 100-pitch limit. “You tip your cap to James,” Hazleton Area head coach Russ Canzler said. “He did a phenomenal job on the mound.
He’s been putting up great numbers the whole season. You know you’re going to be in a battle against him, and he was tough. .
.. Thankfully, we were able to do enough to force him into deep counts, put the ball in play agains thim enough times to give ourselves the opportunity to keep the game close.
” With Hufford on in relief, Darian Haraschak and James Festa moved the hitting line along with back-to-back singles. More importantly, their hits chased both pinch runner Jordan Serra and Marino home to tie the game at 4. Haraschak raced to third on Festa’ single and, when nobody in a Wolfpack uniform noticed him, Festa sneaked off to second with still only one out.
Designated hitter Marcos Gil Pena then bounced an infield grounder into the FieldTurf. The Wolfpack tried to cut pinch runner Chris Knelly down at home, but the throw went awry and allowed Knelly to score and give Hazleton Area its first lead. Three pitches later, Bryant Diaz’s RBI single single gave the Cougars an insurance tally.
Hazleton Area junior Chris Peters was the beneficiary of his teammates’ late-game offensive magic. He worked around a leadoff walk to Bottger in the top of the seventh to pick up the win in relief of Marino. Peters wound up allowing just one run on one hit, fanning five and walking three over the final four innings.
He’s now won one game and saved three others in his last four appearances on the mound. In Peters’ last two games, Timmy Trumpet’s “Narco” was blaring over the Schiavo Field speakers as he made his warm-ups pitches as if he were the New York Mets’ Edwin Diaz coming in for a save at Citi Field. “I love it!” a grinning Peters said.
“I just had to keep pitching, hitting my spots, staying on top of them, not let kids get barrels of their bats on the ball and not dance around them. “I wasn’t worried when they got a runner on (in the seventh). I just had to make sure they didn’t get two (runs) against me.
I think (playing) in a lot of close games puts a little more pressure on us; it makes us perform better. You can’t make mistakes. You have to go.
” The Wolfpack (8-5, 5-2) performed better early in the game, at least offensively. After Bottger worked his way out of a jam following two walks and a wild pitch in the bottom of the first, his teammates got him a run in the second and two more in the third to give Wilkes-Barre Area a 3-0 lead. In the former, singles by Howe and Omar Jerez and Nathan Fritz’s RBI fielder’s choice ground accounted for the game’s first run.
In the latter, Tyler Daugherty’s single and walks to Declan Gregor, Dalton Flowers and Bottger’s bases-loaded walk forced in one run and Howe’s second of three singles produced another. Marino, however, limited the damage at that point. His Cougars teammates helped by scratching out a run against Bottger in the bottom of the third on a walk to Diaz, Logan Hearity’s bunt single and eventually Ledger’s groundout to make it, 3-1.
Hazleton Area avoided major danger when Koleton Davies walked and a Marino pitch plunked Daugherty starting the fourth inning. Gregor greeted Peters with a sacrifice bunt with top of the Wolfpack batting order due up. But Marino, now playing left field, caught Hufford’s fly ball for the second out and threw a strike to Ledger to cut Davies down for the rally-killing out.
“If you have a crystal ball and you know you’re going to mount some sort of comeback, you want to know that you’re going to stay in it and not allow them to score any more,” Canzler said. “Even when you’re down in these types of games..
. you still have to stay in the game and treat it like it’s 0-0.” The Wolfpack tacked on their fourth run one inning later with two walks and another Howe RBI single pushing the visitors’ lead to 4-1.
Bottger, meanwhile, faced the minimum number of Cougar batters over the fourth and fifth innings on his team’s way to its first apparent victory over Hazleton Area since the merger of Coughlin, GAR and Meyers high schools into Wilkes-Barre Area in 2019. Those hopes were dashed when the Cougars sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the sixth, five of them scoring and six collecting hits. “I wouldn’t say we had it in our back pocket, (but) we were up 4-1, we were making some plays (and) making some pitches and we scored a couple of runs,” Wolfpack head coach Matt Skrepenak said.
“When you play a team like Hazleton that can put the bat on the ball and is well-coached...
you just can’t make any mistakes. ..
They put their bats on the ball, found some holes and scored some runs to beat us. “We competed,” he added. “We’re a (Class) 6A team competing against another 6A team, and we were right there.
If we throw the ball over the plate and make the routine plays, hit the ball in situations where we can score some runs, we’ll be right there. ..
. We battled them the whole game.” Both teams will be home for WVC games on Wednesday, the Cougars against Nanticoke and the Wolfpack against Dallas.
WILKES-BARRE AREA (4) — Hufford 2b-p 2 0 0 0, Flowers c 2 1 0 0, Bottger p-2b 1 0 0 1, Howe ss 4 1 3 2, Jerez rf 4 0 1 0, Fritz lf 4 0 0 1, Davies cf 3 0 1 0, Daugherty 1b 2 1 1 0, Gregor 3b 1 1 0 0. Totals 23 4 6 4. HAZLETON AREA (6) — Hearity 2b 3 0 1 0, Racho 1b 3 1 1 0 , Ledger c 2 0 0 2, Schmidt cr 0 0 0 0, Higgins 3b 3 0 1 0, Serra pr 0 1 0 0, Marino p-lf 3 1 2 0, Haraschak rf 3 0 1 1, Knelly pr 0 1 0 0, Festa cf 3 1 1 1, Gil Pena dh 3 0 0 1, Pecora lf 0 0 0 0, Peters p 0 0 0 0, Diaz ss 2 1 1 1.
Totals 25 6 8 6. WBA (8-5, 5-2) 012 010 0 — 4Hazleton Area (7-3, 6-1) 001 005 x — 6 E —Wilkes-Barre Area 1, Hazleton Area 0. LOB — Wilkes-Barre Area 8, Hazleton Area 5 DP — Hazleton Area 2.
2B — Racho. SB — Hearity, Racho, Knelly. CS — Hufford, Marino.
S — Gregor. WBA IP H R ER BB K Bottger 5.1 5 4 4 3 7Hufford L 0.
2 3 2 2 1 1 Hazleton Area IP H R ER BB K Marino 3.0 5 3 3 4 3Peters W 4.0 1 1 1 5 3 HBP — by Marino (Daugherty), by Peters (Hufford).
WP — Bottger, 2, Peters. Marino pitched to two batters in the 4th.
