St. C tops Big Red in regular season finale
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STEUBENVILLE -- The regular season is in the books for a pair of Division II baseball teams, who are now looking ahead to tournament time.
St. Clairsville closed another strong campaign by jumping ahead early and pulling away from host Big Red late for a 10-1 victory Thursday evening at the Crimson Complex.
"Timely hitting was the key," St. Clairsville head coach Tom Silva said. "You want to be peaking at the right time, I'm not saying we're peaking by no means, but we're hitting the ball better up and down the order so hopefully that's a sign of good things to come."
Mason Myers worked 4 2/3 innings of one-run ball on the mound while contributing a triple, single and two RBIs at the plate for the Red Devils, who wrap up the campaign 17-7.
"Give a lot of credit to Mason Myers, he hadn't pitched in a while and I thought he did a great job," Silva said. "He got out of some tough situations and did a nice job. We needed to get (Hunter) Hoffman some time on the mound and he did a good job, too."
St. Clairsville plated three runs in the top of the first, the big hit of the inning coming from Brody Saunders with a two-run single.
Big Red's Aydan Manning put up zeros in the next four innings and Big Red plated a run in the bottom of the fourth to make it a 3-1 game, but Steubenville (7-17) left the bases loaded in the third and two on in the fifth, and the Red Devils plated seven in the final three innings to pull away.
"It's been that way all year," Steubenville head coach Fred Heatherington said of leaving men on base. "We just talked, it's not the season we planned to have, but you take what you get. This was the coaches' season, which wasn't very good. Now it's on the players. We'll go as far (in the tournament) as they take us. The tournament starts Saturday and we'll see what happens. Our chances are as good as anyone else's.
"You never know what's going to happen. Everyone starts over at 0-0, hopefully we can put something together."
Cal Beadling had the lone RBI for Big Red.
UP NEXT
St. Clairsville: Will host a Division II, East 1 District sectional final on Tuesday. The Red Devils, the No. 4 seed, will meet the winner of No. 15 Buckeye Local and No. 17 Claymont, who meet Saturday in Connorville.
Big Red: Will host a Division II, East 1 District sectional semifinal on Saturday against No. 21 seed Beaver Local. Steubenville is the No. 12 seed. The winner meets No. 2 Tri-Valley on Tuesday.
St. Clairsville 10, Big Red 1
St. Clairsville 3-0-0 0-1-2 4 – 10 11 0
Big Red 0-0-0 1-0-0 0 – 1 6 1
ST. CLAIRSVILLE (17-7): Myers (WP, 4 2/3IP, 1R, 1ER, 6H, 3K, 3BB), Hoffman (SV, 2 1/3IP, 0R, 0H, 1K, 0BB) and Bush. Blomquist S, RBI; Myers T, S, 2RBI; Hoffman 2S, RBI; Vickers S, RBI; Saunders 2S, 2RBI; Fogle 2S; Balgo S; Nau RBI.
BIG RED (7-17): Manning (LP, 6IP, 6R, 5ER, 9H, 4K, 3BB, 3HBP), McAllister (0IP, 4R, 4ER, 1H, 0K, 1BB, 2HBP), Reese (1IP, 0R, 1H, 0K, 0BB) and Smith. Smith S; Manning S; C. Blackburn S; Bowers S; Pierce S; Beadling S, RBI.