Prep Baseball Report

Recap of District 6 Championships



By Jake Oswalt
Central PA Director of Scouting

class aA: Blairsville 3, Mt. union 2

RatkusBlairsville made history Wednesday night by coming from behind to win 3-2 for the school’s first ever District 6 baseball championship.

Mt. Union, the No. 7 seed, took the early lead with a run each in the 1st and 2nd innings. Cory Kylor drove in Klayton Heffner with an RBI single in the 1st and catcher Boomer Brown drove in another run with a sacrifice fly to left to push the lead to 2-0 in the 2nd.

Blairsville, 17-1 and the top seed, responded with two runs in the bottom of the third inning. The Bobcats took advantage of two walks and an error in the inning. Nick Scribe scored on a passed ball and Scott Thompson drove in winning pitcher Reed Ratkus with an infield single to second base with two outs.

Ratkus kept Mt. Union off the board after the 2nd inning, retiring seven straight at one point. The senior righty got out of a two on, one out jam in the sixth inning and retired the last five batters in order. On the day, Ratkus got the complete game victory on only 81 pitches, walking three and striking out two.

 

class aAAA: State College 3, central mountain 2 (8 innnings)


RaquetCentral Mountain’s RHP Von Walker and State College’s LHP Nick Raquet matched each other pitch for pitch until the bottom of the 8th inning when State College senior catcher Jason Costa drove a pitch to deep left field for a walk-off double to bring in Binghamton recruit Darian Herncane from first base. Herncane had reached via a walk prior to Costa's heroics.

State College (16-6) took the lead in the 4th inning when Dan Fry led off the inning with a triple to the right field corner. After a Herncane walk and stolen base, Costa brought in two runs with a single to right field. Costa finished the night 2-for-4 with all three RBI for the Little Lions. 

Central Mountain (11-11) answered right back in the top half of the 5th inning. Back to back walks to lead off the inning set the table for the Wildcats. A strikeout and a double steal moved runners to second and third for Walker. The senior Penn State football walk-on grounded out to short to bring in a run. The first baseman tried to gun down Dylan Kerstetter at third base after the out but the throw sailed high and wide of the target to allow Kerstetter to score the tying run.

It looked like State College would win the game in the bottom of the 7th inning after a Calvin Sichler leadoff triple to right field. However, Walker dug deep and struck out the next two batters before inducing a harmless fly out to right to end the threat.


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