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Beaver’s historic day comes at Creek’s expense

DELIVERING — Indian Creek’s Josh Speaker pitches against Beaver Local on Monday. (Photo by Dan Santarelli)

CALCUTTA — Opening day was filled with smiles for the Beaver Local baseball team and the community on Monday.

“I’ve played three seasons here, and we played at the (Columbiana County) Career Center (in Lisbon),” Beaver Local’s Luke Call said. “It’s a great feeling to finally have a place to call home and a place for all of our family and friends to come watch us play.”

Call pitched one-hit baseball through six innings and had 11 strikeouts to help the Beavers to a 10-2 victory over Indian Creek on Monday.

It marked the first time the Beaver Local baseball and softball teams played games on the Beaver Local Community Fields on the Beaver Local school campus after a long, drawn out process of delays and obstacles.

Prior to the game, Beaver Local community member Billy Pancake Jr. addressed the crowd about the meaning and the work that went into the fields.

Old demolition debris under the fields was a major issue in preventing the facility from being used last season.

“Late last fall, we finally came to an agreement with the school board to pretty much turn the fields over to the community and let us fix the fields,” Pancake said. “At that point, we had a fundraiser that we started on Facebook. We started it on a Friday morning and by Friday night we raised over $15,000. That money helped us to purchase all the infield mix for both fields and the sod for the baseball field. Without laying that sod back in the fall they wouldn’t have been playing here today.”

The field name is Community Field due to the effort the Beaver Local community coming together to finish this field.

“There were a lot of people that went into finishing this field,” Pancake said. “It seemed like any business I went to everyone was saying what can I do to help.”

Donations were a huge part in the completion of the field.

“Mr. Pancake and the crew got a huge amount of donors for the field,” Beaver Local superintendent Eric Lowe said. “A lot of community support helped pay for this field.”

Inclement weather in the past two weeks had Pancake worried that the fields wouldn’t be ready for Monday.

“I thought we were in great shape and I wake up last Wednesday morning and there was snow,” Pancake said. “We had to put in a lot of hours over the weekend to get this field ready. It’s nice to see that our kids finally have a place to play that is their own.”

A Beaver Local school campus that just opened up three years ago now has athletic facilities within walking distance.

“We are very blessed to be able to have this campus like set up,” Lowe said. “It’s amazing for our students to be able to have facilities that our within walking distance of the school.”

On the diamond, the Beavers saw six innings of dominant pitching from Call.

“There couldn’t have been a better way to start the season,” Call said. “It was great to see such a community support here tonight.”

Call had a long wait in between the fifth and sixth inning as the Beavers scored seven runs on the offensive side taking a 10-2 lead into the sixth.

“I just felt confident,” Call said. “My teammates gave me a big lead and they played great defense behind me.”

Big hitters for the Beavers were Chris Yanni, who had a double and a single with two RBIs. Noah West had a single and a double.

“It was a solid effort all the way around to open our field,” Beaver Local coach Michael Agnew said. “Everybody was excited and they came through. It’s amazing to have this field and not have to drive 15 minutes for home games. It’s easier for the community to come out and watch the team.”

Indian Creek’s leading hitter was Klay Cottis, who had a double.

“We are a very young team,” Indian Creek coach Mike Cottis said. “We have one senior on the team and we had mostly sophomores out there today. You have to tip your hat to them. I tip my hat to Call he had a great showing today. Hopefully we get better as time goes on.”

The teams meet again Wednesday when Beaver Local travels to Indian Creek.

Beaver Local 10, Indian Creek 2

Indian Creek 1-0-0 0-0-0 1 — 2-2-6

Beaver Local 2-1-0 0-7-0 x –10-7-0

INDIAN CREEK: Klay Cottis (4IP, 3K, 4BB, 6H, 6R, 4BB), Josh Speaker (0IP,1K, 1H, 2BB), Jacob Wright (1IP, 2K, 1BB, 0R), Dylan Forester (1IP, 1K, 1BB) and Kody Cottis.

BEAVER LOCAL: Luke Call, wp (6IP, 11K, 1H, 1R, 4BB), Noah West (1IP, 2K, 1H, 1R, 2BB) and Carter Wolski.

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