Wheeling Post 1 fires on all cylinders against Wellsburg
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WHEELING - Somebody call Thin Lizzy, because the boys are back in town.
Wheeling Post 1 made their return to Patriot Field from their recent tournament stay in Shelby, North Carolina on Tuesday, and were bolstered by the debut of several new players who joined Post 1 after their time with the state-champion Wheeling Central Maroon Knights ended this past weekend.
In their first game back in Wheeling and at full strength, Post 1 defeated Wellsburg Post 34 15-1 in five innings.
"We've got a really competitive group," Post 1 coach Scott Castilow said. "One thing that we preach is a lot of grit, and I think we've got a gritty team. With having everybody here, now it's piecing everything together and putting people in the right spots as far as our lineup and defensively. I'm very pleased with today."
Post 1 took a 3-0 lead after the first inning, and poured on five runs in the second and third innings to pull away.
In the first frame, a Jake Brown walk, a picture-perfect bunt by Braxton Billick, and a Jaxon Murray walk loaded the bases for Wheeling. Seth Cover was struck by a pitch next to plate Brown for the game's first run. Billick scored on a passed ball and Jack Selmon recorded a ground out RBI to tally three runs in the inning.
Jaxon Murray was in the middle of much of Post 1's action on Tuesday, shellacking a two-run homer in the fourth inning and a one-run triple in the third inning to end with four RBI and three runs scored in all.
Seth Cover and Henry Anderson also each had two RBI as Post 1 had 11 hits as a team. Brady Ernest paced Wheeling with three hits including a double.
Reese Davis was the winning pitcher for Post 1. He allowed one run and struck out four over four innings.
For Post 34, they will lick their wounds after a day that left Wellsburg wishing for a redo.
"I did not see this one going the way it did," Post 34 head coach Micah Knisely said. "We are a whole lot better of a team than how we played today. We lost one player from last year, this whole team's coming back. We shouldn't play that poorly with the kids we have. We had a few good things and a lot of bad things that we need to clean up. It's early in the season, some kids are just coming back from high school ball, we'll figure it out."
Brayden McFarland pounded an RBI sacrifice fly to deep centerfield in the third inning to account for Post 34's lone run.
Matt Geer, Raymond DeFranco and TJ Decapio each collected doubles for Wellsburg.
Wheeling 15, Wellsburg 1
Wellsb 355 2x - 1 3 3
Wheel 001 00 - 15 11 0
We- Billick lp (0K, 3BB), Fedak (2) (1K, 1BB), Geer (3) (2K, 0BB) and Moore. DeFranco D; Geer D; Decapio D; McFarland rbi.
Wh- Davis wp (4K, 4BB), Paolina (5) (0K, 2BB) and Selmon. Ernest D, 2S, SB; Murray T, HR, 4rbi; Digiandomenico T, rbi; Billick 2S, rbi; Cover 2rbi; Clark S; Selmon rbi; Anderson S, 2rbi; Jones S.