If Tyrone starter Tyler Golden could have somehow bottled his final confrontation with Southern Huntingdon slugger Jordan Yohn and opened it every time he came to the plate, the Eagles’ first round playoff game would have been completely different.
In Yohn’s last at-bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, Golden started him with a fast ball down the middle for a strike, got him to chase a curve ball after a wicked a brush-back pitch, and then overpowered him with a high fast ball that Yohn swung at, but got nothing but air.
For a pitcher, it was a thing of beauty.
But for a hitter, Yohn’s other at-bats had the aesthetic value of the Sistine Chapel. In those three, Yohn roped a pair of doubles and belted a towering two-run home run to lead the No. 3 seeded Rockets over Tyrone 7-3, eliminating the Golden Eagles from the postseason.
Golden took the loss, pitching all six innings while allowing five earned runs and striking out seven to end his season 2-2.
His counterpart Yohn went 3-for-4 with 4 RBI and allowed 2 earned runs over six innings on the hill. The rest of the Rockets’ lineup combined to go 4-for-22 and drove in two runs.
“If you take that hitter away, that’s more than half of their RBIs,” said Tyrone manager Tom Coleman. “It could have been different, and obviously there are some things that, looking back on, it you would like to rethink and redo, but you can’t.”
Unlike many of Tyrone’s games early this season, when bad at-bats and fielding errors had Coleman ready to lobby the PIAA to institute mulligans for head coaches, there were few do-over situations for the Eagles yesterday. But the ones they had were costly and they involved stranding runners in scoring position.
The Eagles left five runners in scoring position and stranded 10 total.
For sure, the first inning was one Coleman would like to rewind. In the top of the frame, Tyler Gillmen and Jamie Levinson started things off with back-to-back singles and with one out Golden loaded the bags when he reached on an error by Rocket shortstop Matt Baer.
With Southern’s infield drawn in, Matt Brooks grounded to second baseman Zach Crull, whose throw home lifted catcher Troy Hoover off the plate and towards the infield. But Hoover regrouped and made a swiping tag at Gillmen to cut the run down. The tag was high, and Tyrone assistant Bill Vigne had a heated exchange with the home plate umpire to no avail.
The Eagles would get no runs out of their bases-loaded situation.
Then, in the bottom of the first, Golden walked Baer in the leadoff spot, and then mishandled Corey Knepper’s sacrifice bunt attempt, putting runners on first and second. That was when Yohn smoked his first double, sending a hot liner deep to left-center to drive in a pair and make it 2-0.
“(Our at-bat) was definitely a momentum-breaker, but we left a lot of runners on throughout the game,” said Coleman. “We were never able to fully recover from that, and we never had momentum on our side.”
Southern added three more in the second, with Yohn again providing the muscle, this time serving Golden’s 1-0 fastball high and deep over the centerfield fence for a two-run homer that made it 5-0.
Tyrone answered in the third with a pair of runs on a two-run single up the middle by Johnny Shaffer that brought home Gillmen and Levinson and cut the lead to 5-2.
But the Rockets added two more in the bottom of the fifth, and Yohn was again in the center of the mix. He led off with a double to left, and his courtesy runner Jason Long later scored on an error by Levinson at short. Hoover made it 7-2 when he scored from third after Brock Anders throw plunked Hoover in the back and tailed into the outfield.
Donnie Hunter pulled Tyrone within four in the sixth when he walked, and later scored on an error by third baseman Josh Jones, but that was as close as the Eagles would get. Long relieved Yohn in the seventh and recorded the save, striking out two of the three batters he faced.
Coleman was reflective following the loss, crediting his seniors with battling through a tough season that didn’t turn out quite as expected.
“This group of seniors was one of the best groups I’ve ever had, not just to coach but to be around,” said Coleman. “They will be missed.”
SOUTHERN HUNTINGDON 7 TYRONE 3
TYRONE – Gillmen, lf, 4-1-2; Levinson, ss, 2-1-2; Shaffer, 1b, 4-0-1; Golden, p, 4-0-1; Brooks, 3b, 4-0-0; Moore, 2b, 3-0-0; Rudy, ph, 1-0-0; Schopp, cf, 3-0-0; Hunter, dh, 2-1-0; Romano, rf, 0-0-0; Anders, c, 2-0-0. TOTALS: 29-3-6.
SOUTHERN HUNTINGDON – Baer, ss, 3-1-0; Knepper, cf, 3-2-1; Yohn, p-1b, 4-1-3; Hoover, c, 2-1-0; Jones, 3b, 2-0-1; J. Crull, lf, 3-0-0; Thomas, 1b, 2-0-0; Long, cr-p, 1-1-1; Z. Crull, 2b, 3-0-0; Mansberger, rf, 3-1-1. TOTALS: 26-7-7.
TYRONE 002 001 0 – 3-6-2
S. HUNTINGDON 230 020 X – 7-7-2
2B: Levinson, Yohn 2, Jones
HR: Yohn
RBI: Shaffer 2, Knepper, Yohn 4
K: Yohn 8, Golden 7, Long 2
BB: Yohn 3, Golden 3
WP: Yohn LP: Golden S: Long
