ON THE MOUND — Wellsburg pitcher Matt Swanson delivers to the plate during Thursday’s game against Wheeling Post 1. - Cody Tomer

WELLSBURG — Wheeling Post 1 pocketed its first win of the 2022 legion baseball season on Thursday with an 11-3 triumph over host Wellsburg Post 34.

While Post 1 improved from its season opening loss from the day before, manager Jon-Michael Brunner sees much more potential in this year’s group down the road.

“We were better than (Tuesday),” Brunner said. “But, we still have a very long way to go. We cut our errors in half from four to two. It’s just one of those things where you have to get guys working on the same page. It’s a game and I’m glad we won but we are still a long way away from where we need to be.”

Post 1 received a strong effort from pitcher Luke Myers, who went six innings with six strikeouts and three walks to earn the victory.

Xavier Fankhouser tossed a scoreless seventh for Wheeling.

“It was a good outing by Luke on the mound,” Brunner said. “Xavier only had to come in for one inning. We know Luke is going to have to log a lot of innings for us and he did a great job of keeping guys off balance and getting a lot of ground balls. He was around 85 pitches but that’s what he’s done the whole year for his dad (Park coach Steve Myers) at Park so he’s excited to be out there with the guys competing. We want a guy who will compete on the bump.”

It didn’t take Post 1 long to strike as Michael Toepfer laced a RBI single down the third base line for a 1-0 edge.

Wellsburg responded in the second as Zach Omery grounded into a fielder’s choice to plate the equalizer.

Toepfer put Wheeling ahead to stay in the third without taking the bat off his shoulders as he drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in a run.

That’s when errors began to haunt Wellsburg as a pair of defensive miscues brought in three more runs in the frame to give Post 1 a 5-1 upper hand.

“The first couple of innings were good but we made a few stupid errors,” Wellsburg manager Micah Knisley said. “Post 1 is usually a pretty good team and you can’t do that against a team like that. But, if we make the simple plays we’ll be alright. We can hang with them. They had seven hits and we had six so errors just killed us (Thursday).”

A Wheeling error in the bottom of the third gave Post 34 a run back but Wheeling’s offense kept the pressure on Wellsburg.

A Toepfer fielder’s choice, one error, two wild pitches and RBI knocks from Collin Paull and Jared Marsh gave Post 1 its first win of the young campaign.

Marsh finished with three hits and Jack Scouvart tallied two.

Ray Defranko garnered a RBI for Wellsburg.

While the hitting is there, Brunner is looking for the spark to last the entire season.

“The main thing (Thursday) was the hustle on and off the field,” Brunner said. “We talked about our brand and what we do at Post 1. You look at alumni that came through this program like James Salvator, Ross Salvatori, Isaac Rine, Jarrett Delbrugge and Colton Coss — they were always the first guys on the field. That sets the tempo on how you’re going to attack the game. That’s what we talked about postgame. The hitting is going to come but when you’re the first guy out there, now you’re mindset is ready to go. If we can get everybody doing that on the same page I really think that’s going to take these guys to the next level.”