FERRELLTON — The runs came in bunches for the North Star baseball team in its District 5 Class 2A baseball semifinal contest against Tussey Mountain on Wednesday. The top-seeded Cougars scored nearly all the runs they would need in the bottom of the first inning to topple the fourth-seeded Titans 9-3.
North Star junior Andy Retassie hit a leadoff single off Tussey Mountain starter Camden Chilcote. Senior Cayden Turner followed with a single of his own advancing Retassie to third with no one out. A stolen base by Turner put runners at second and third. Retassie would score the game’s first run on a passed ball that also allowed Turner to reach third. He would score on a Conner Yoder sacrifice fly.
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The Cougars led 3-0 after one inning.
Turner did not allow a Titans run until the fourth. With two on by way of back-to-back singles to start the inning, a catcher’s interference call against North Star backstop Braden Livingston loaded the bases. Tussey Mountain’s Aidan Lane grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, but Connor Jones came home to cut North Star's lead to 3-1.
Bryson Durst led off the fourth with a walk. Retassie, who finished 2-for-3 with an RBI, blasted a single to centerfield, which was misplayed, allowing Durst to score all the way from first to make it 4-1. The error also allowed Retassie to advance to third. He scored on a Turner groundout to second.
The Titans put a crooked number on the board in the top-half of the sixth. Turner began to run out of gas, walking the first three hitters of the inning. Vance Kimmel came on in relief and was greeted by a Noah Lucko base hit that plated two Titans. That cut into the North Star lead 5-3. However, Kimmel would sit down the next three Tussey Mountain batters to end the inning.
The Cougars would get those runs back and then some in their half of the sixth. Following a Turner base hit and a stolen base, Yoder singled home Turner from second to make it 6-3. Livingston was hit by a pitch, and with two men on, Glendon Griffith brought them both home with a two-run single to give the Cougars an 8-3 advantage. Griffith scored one batter later on a double by Nolan Weible to set the final.
North Star coach Jake Klukaszewski had a message for his senior-heavy Cougars following the game.
“We need to finish,” Klukaszewski said after the team finished District 5-2A runner-up the past two seasons. “This is the time to do it now. We got to stay humble, take it one pitch and one inning at a time. If we do that, we’ll be in the game."
North Star will try to capture the District 5-2A title on Tuesday against either defending champion McConnellsburg or Northern Bedford County.
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