Andrew Grimm ROUNDING THIRD — Catholic Central's Andrew Napoli rounds third base on his way to scoring against Wellsville in Central's 13-3 win Wednesday.

STEUBENVILLE — Baseball is a game full of ups and downs. Factor in a young team, and those ups and downs can feel like a roller coaster ride.

For Catholic Central, the roller coaster ride has been in full effect in their last three games, and it hit one of the peaks on Wednesday evening.

After winning by run rule on the road as Wellsville on Saturday and losing to Wheeling Central on the flip side of the similar score Monday, the Crusaders bounced back in a rematch with the Tigers and earned a season sweep with a 13-3, five inning victory at Vaccaro Field on Wednesday.

“It was a good bounce back for us,” Central head coach Andrew Henry said. “We had a good effort on Saturday, had a tough on Monday against a very good Wheeling Central team, then today we were able to bounce back. We really settled in and played well. We have a resilient bunch, they show up every day ready to play. Effort is never an issue for us.”

The Crusaders, now 3-8, fell behind the Tigers (0-9) early as the visitors plated three runs in the top of the second inning to pounce early. Central, though, responded with two runs in the bottom half and took over from there, plating the last 13 runs of the game. That number could have been more had the run rule not ended things early as the game-ending run crossed with more runners rounding the bases.

After the tough start, in which none of the three runs were earned, Matty Jones locked in on the mound and finished with a nine strikeout performance holding the visitors to two hits. He also had a pair of RBIs at the plate.

Tommy Symington had a two-run double for Central, while Hunter Davidson, Joseph Vranish and Luke Bryan each had an RBI.

Central’s efforts were aided by nine Wellsville errors.

The Crusaders took the lead for good with a four-run third inning, added two in the fourth, then came through with five runs in the bottom of the fifth to bring things to an early end.

UP NEXT

The Crusaders look to get back-to-back wins for the first time this season today when they welcome Cameron.

Catholic Central 13, Wellsville 3

W 0-3-0 0-0-x x — 3 2 9

CC 0-2-4 2-5-x x — 13 4 2

WELLSVILLE (0-9): Kessler (LP, 2 1/3IP, 6R, 4ER, 2H, 1K, 7BB), Frank (2 1/3IP, 7R, 0ER, 2H, 1K, 1BB) and Morris. Watkins 2S.

CATHOLIC CENTRAL (3-8): Jones (WP, CG, 3R, 0ER, 2H, 9K, 3BB) and L. Bryan. Fabbro S; Jones 2 RBIs; Davidson RBI; Vranish S, RBI; Symington D, 2RBIs; L. Bryan S, RBI.