Wheeling gets a little revenge on Post 33
Trending
RICHMOND -- As the legion season winds down, teams with aspirations beyond the regular season want a test.
That is why perennial Ohio Valley powers Wheeling Post 1 and Jefferson County Post 33 typically meet late in the season, as they did Tuesday at the Edison Unified Sports Complex.
After Post 33 topped Post 1 in the Beast of the East a couple weeks ago in the Friendly City, Wheeling returned the favor Tuesday with a 6-3 victory.
"Wheeling is always a good team, we're a good team, they just got the timely hits at the end of the game," Jefferson County head coach Anthony Pierro said. "We had some missed opportunities, had a guy thrown out at the plate and just didn't hit the ball at the end of the game to give ourselves a chance.
"We want to play good teams … we would play them every day of the week if we could, because playing them makes us better. We lost, it stinks, but it will make us better. This time of the year we want to be playing good teams to be ready (for districts).
"We want to see good pitching, we want teams to make routine plays and make us earn it. We have some young guys on the team that we want to see that level of competition, not only for us this season, but their high school season next year and for us going forward, too."
Pierro and Wheeling coach Jon-Michael Brunner, who were college teammates at West Liberty in their playing days, both missed the initial meeting.
"I love playing against Anthony's teams," Brunner said. "We played together in college. We both missed the game in the Beast, so we laughed about it. It's fun to catch up with him, they always have a good team and are competitive and are fun to play.
"I thought we were a bit sluggish to start, had some trouble finding the zone early, but we battled back and hit the ball when we needed to. We want to see good teams late in the season and their pitcher was really good.
"Working the count and seeing a pitcher like that is good for us, we've got two area games and then it's the area tournament so we're getting down to the end."
The game was knotted 3-3 until the sixth inning when Post 1 (23-5) plated a run and tacked on two more in the seventh for some added insurance, while Jefferson County (23-8) had a few costly missed opportunities after doing all of its scoring in the first two innings.
Post 1 broke the tie when Jared Marsh rushed home on a ground ball that turned into a rundown for an inning-ending double play, but not before he crossed the plate for what proved to be the winning run.
After Post 33's Hakim Edwards was tagged out at the plate to end the bottom half, Andrew Skadra, who finished with a double and triple and drove in a pair of runs for Wheeling, hit an RBI triple and scored on Trey Prather's RBI double in the next at bat.
After Post 1 took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first with a Skadra RBI double and a Prather RBI single, Gavin Pownall got Jefferson County on the board with an RBI single in the bottom half.
Alex Taylor's RBI single made it 3-1 Wheeling in the top of the second before back-to-back RBI singles by Post 33's Brayden Moses and Kaden Jurosko knotted the game in the bottom half.
From there, Wheeling's Jack Selmon (three strikeouts in five innings) and Jefferson County's Aydan Manning (five strikeouts in six innings) put up zeros in the next three innings.
UP NEXT
Wheeling: Stays in the area to face Wellsburg Post 34 today before taking on Follansbee Post 45 on Friday, both at Brooke High School, both foes it will see in next week's West Virginia Area tournament.
Jefferson County: Closes its regular season with a trip to Cambridge Post 84 for a nine-inning contest today before Ohio District tournament play this weekend.
Wheeling 6, Jefferson County 3
Wheeling 2-1-0 0-0-1 2 – 6 11 0
Jefferson County 1-2-0 0-0-0 0 – 3 8 1
WHEELING (23-5): Selmon (WP, 5IP, 3R, 2ER, 7H, 3K, 3BB), Myers (SV, 2IP, 0R, 1H, 1K, 0BB) and Wilson. Taylor 2S, RBI; Murray S; Skadra D, T, 2RBI; Prather D, S, 2RBI; Wilson D, S; Marsh S; Jamison S.
JEFFERSON COUNTY (24-8): Manning (LP, 6IP, 5R, 4ER, 9H, 5K, 2BB), Barcalow (1IP, 2R, 1ER, 2H, 2K, 0BB) and Smith. Moses 2S, RBI; Jurosko 2S, RBI; Hyde S; G. Pownall S, RBI; Crozier S; Edwards S.