Athens baseball blanks Towanda.
By: The Review | Towanda Daily Review | April 24, 2015 | Photo courtesy The Review
2015 NTL and District 4 News
WYSOX - The Athens Wildcats scored two runs in the first inning and had three pitchers combine on a four-hitter in a 4-0 win over Towanda on Thursday night.
Playing in the cold and wind with some snow flurries during the game, Matt Collins threw five innings of three-hit baseball for Athens, striking out five and walking none.
Joe Horn pitched 1 1/3 innings with a walk, a hit allowed and three strikeouts and Marc Felt got the save with 2/3 of an inning with a strikeout.
Ben Rubert and Zane Vargason each had two hit days for the Wildcats.
Rubert scored a run in the game and Vargason scored two runs and had an RBI.
Ryan Kennedy had a hit and scored a run for Athens and Luke Newman had a hit and two RBI.
Tyler Forbes had a hit and an RBI and Nick Vosburg had a hit for the Wildcats.
Lars Thomason had two hits and Keegan Kisner and Nick Place each had hits for Towanda.
Ethan Barto pitched two innings, allowing a walk and two hits, with two runs, both earned. Troy Pierce worked three innings, striking out two, walking three and allowing three hits and one earned run. Thomason pitched one inning allowing a hit and a walk and Place pitched one inning, allowing two hits and a run.
"Unfortunately we couldn't get a hit when we needed it," Towanda coach Bill Sexton said. "We had some opportunities. I thought we played better tonight than we had been playing. I thought we played decent defense, and I wasn't too displeased with our pitching."
Against the league-leading Wildcats the Black Knights got solid pitching, especially out of youngsters Pierce and Thomason.
"Our plan today, we have a lot of games coming up, go two innings with Barto, two innings with Pierce then throw three others an inning. Pierce had two solid first innings, two double plays behind him helped. He only threw 24 pitches through two innings. We decided to extend him another inning and I'm glad we did. I was pleased with the way he pitched and I was pleased with the way Thomason threw.
"I told them after the game, Athens is the defending league champions, the ones with the leg up on the league right now. I thought we played a competitive game with them tonight. It was a definite step up tonight, hopefully we can keep stepping up."
Towanda plays in the Dunn Field Tournament on Saturday. The games this year will be played at Notre Dame and Edison. Towanda opens with Notre Dame at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Notre Dame, while Edison hosts Lansing at 10 a.m. The winners play at Notre Dame at 1 p.m., the losers play at Edison at 1 p.m.
