×

Beast of the East unkind to Weirton

WEIRTON — Weirton American Legion Post 10 scored first and hung with Independent Players No. 2 until the third inning before absorbing its fourth-straight loss, 10-4, in the Edgar Martin Beast of the East Tournament Saturday at Ed Bowman Field.

The Pirates got two home runs from Noah Gillettte and took advantage of inconsistent pitching, mental mistakes and three fielding errors.

“Our biggest problem the entire year and especially the past couple of games in this tournament has been our pitchers giving up too many walks and hitting too many batters,” said Post 10 coach Jason Swartzmiller, whose club now has an overall record of 5-14 and are 0-4 in the Beast of the East Tournament. “When teams get hits off of us, they score runs because we have put too many on base ahead of them. When we throw strikes, our defense plays pretty well and we get the outs.”

Post 10 was the beneficiary of eight bases-on-balls from winning pitcher Tyrus Kerr, but were unable to capitalize on them the way the Pirates did against Paul. It didn’t help that Post 10 had a runner thrown out at home plate and another caught in a rundown between third and home on successive plays in the third inning with Independent nursing a 4-1 lead at the time.

“We were going on contact when (Jonathon) Creese got out at the plate on a ground ball to the infield, but the rundown of Cody Tate was my fault. That was on me,” said Swartzmiller. “I want to be aggressive on the bases and we’ll continue to do that style of base running. We just have to be smart about it.”

Joey Dawson led off the game for Post 10 with a walk and promptly stole second. He went to third on a Sebastian Spencer swinging bunt base hit up the third base line and scored on a ground out.

Independent tied it in the second, but went ahead with three runs in the fourth inning. The Pirates only had two hits in the uprising but one of them was a two-run blast over the left-field fence by Noah Gillette.

The club from Springdale, Pa. blew the game open in the fifth inning sending 10 batters to the plate scoring five runs on four hits. All of the runs were charged to Paul, who was relieved by Devin Donaldson.

Donaldson gave up the second homer to Gillette in the seventh inning and again the ball sailed over the left field fence.

Post 10 got two runs in the sixth inning on an RBI single by Christian Ridgeway and a Tate sacrifice fly. They got another run in the seventh when Tyler Wright doubled and raced home when Donaldson followed with a single.

Independent 10, Weirton 4

Post 10 1-0-0 0-0-2 1 — 4 6 3

Independent 0-1-0 3-5-1– 10 8 3

POST 10: Paul (LP, 1K 5W, 9R, 7ER), Donaldson (5th, 0K 0W, 1ER) and Walls, McUmar.

INDEPENDENT: Kerr (WP, 0K, 8W), Godfree (6th, 0K, 0W) and Kaminski.

+TWO OR MORE HITS: Post 10 (Donaldson 2); Independent (N. Gillette 3, I. Gillette 2). DOUBLES: Post 10 (Wright); Independent (I. Gillette). TRIPLES: None. HOME RUNS: Independent (N. Gillette 2). RBIs: Post 10 (Tate, Donaldson, Ridgeway); Independent (N. Gillette 3, Campbell 2, Perrioz, Keibler, Loskoch).

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.73/week.

Subscribe Today