PLAINS TWP. — Plains scored seven times in the third inning to take control and go on to a 10-1 victory over Township in a District 16 Major Little League Baseball semifinal game Wednesday.
Plains, which sent 11 batters to the plate and had seven hits in the decisive inning, will play Mountain Top for the District 16 title at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Jenkins Township.
The inning erased an early 1-0 Township lead on a Drew Whitling first-inning double.
Colton Ziobro, Frankie Roman and Whitling had singles later in the game, but Township couldn’t get a runner past first base over the final five innings.
Mountain Top’s big inning came earlier with a seven-run first inning allowing it to get past Greater Pittston Area 10-5 in the other semifinal.
Griffin Maynor doubled, homered and had four RBI for GPA. He scored twice.
Township had gone 3-2 and GPA 2-3 in round-robin play to finish third and fourth out of six teams and qualify for the semifinals.
Township defeated Nanticoke 13-0 in four innings and Plains topped GPA 8-2 Monday, the last night of round-robin play.
Both GPA runs came on solo homers by Chris Tibel.
Drew Whitling, Parker McAndrew and Chase Dudek had two hits each and Mason Slusser drove in three runs for Township.
Whitling also struck out five in 2 2/3 innings.
Plains scored five times before the game’s first out was recorded.
Levi Pisano relieved in the first inning. He struck out three and did not walk a batter while holding Plains to three runs (two earned) on three hits in four full innings.
Both semifinals were rematches of June 29 games when unbeaten Mountain Top downed GPA 6-3 and Plains handled Township 13-3 in five innings.
9-11-YEAR-OLDS
Greater Pittston Area defeated Hanover 1-6 in five innings and unbeaten Mountain Top shut out Nanticoke 15-0 in Tuesday’s semifinals.
Those results set up Saturday afternoon’s championship game at Duryea.
David Klansek had two hits and Brian Wood struck out six while giving up just one hit in three innings to earn the pitching win for GPA.
GPA went 2-1 in round-robin play to earn the second seed for the semifinals. It topped Nanticoke 15-5 in four innings.
Wyatt Neilson and Jack Homschek had two hits each for GPA.
Winning pitcher Jonah Rowlands struck out three and did not allow an earned run.
8-10-YEAR-OLDS
DURYEA — Base hits, walks, hit by pitches: the Township 8-10 all-stars got themselves on base by any means necessary, and it carried them into Saturday’s District 16 championship game.
A five-run third inning broke open a 1-1 ballgame, with Township pulling ahead for good on its way to a 9-2 win over Greater Pittston Area in the 8-10 semifinals Tuesday night.
In the third inning alone, Township had two hits, drew three walks, had one hit batter and one more reach on a throwing error as they took a 6-1 lead, effectively putting the game out of reach.
“It’s pretty exciting, we played a really smart game,” Township manager Charles Henries said. “We put the ball in play, hustled 100 percent of the time … just a great team game.”
Tuesday’s semifinal was just two days removed from the GPA-Township pool play matchup, which GPA was able to win 10-9.
GPA jumped out quick to start this one, too: Sebastian Rabon roped the first pitch of the game for a double, and scored on an RBI groundout from the very next batter, Jacob Hulse.
Township evened things up in the bottom of the second inning, Caden Rossi reaching on error and scoring after Santino Rynkiewicz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
In the third, Township sent 10 batters to the plate, scoring five times and chasing GPA starter Hulse from the game early.
Rocco Skula drew a walk with one out, stole second and scored after a bad throw trying to get him out at third base to give Township a 2-1 lead.
Andy Sperazza had an RBI single, Josiah Martinez drew a bases-loaded walk to push home another run and Connor Yonki finished things up with a two-run single to make it 6-1.
“That first batter [for GPA] got on and scored, it could have gone downhill really quick,” Henries said. “Everyone kept their composure, took a breath and just had fun.”
Anthony Argento settled down and pitched 4 2/3 strong innings to earn the win for Township, allowing just the one first-inning run. Rocco Skula finished the game with 1 1/3 innings and one run allowed.
Township tacked on another run in the fourth to make it a 7-1 lead after a Skula RBI base hit, and scored twice in the fifth as well.
GPA’s offense was led by Pabon, scoring in the first after his leadoff double and driving home the team’s second and final run in the sixth with a base hit.
GPA was 2-1 and Township 1-2 during the round-robin portion of the tournament.
Deklan Bender drove in two runs, including the walk-off RBI in the bottom of the sixth inning when the teams met June 30. That hit capped a six-run sixth to complete a rally from a 9-4 deficit.
Jake Hulse, Angelo Macario and Bash Pabon combined to strike out 11 while holding Township to one earned run and three hits.
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