Josh Clark\’s senior season is winding down much better than its inauspicious beginning, but if the Tyrone baseball team is to advance to at least one more game, it will have to improve even more for the senior right-hander.
Clark, the Eagles\’ everyday leftfielder, began the 2006 campaign in a 1-for-9 slump at the plate batting out of the nine-hole while committing two fielding errors in his first two complete games.
But in Tyrone\’s third game of the season – an embarrassing 12-2 loss on the road to Penns Valley – Clark made his first appearance on the mound. Coming on in relief in the fourth inning, he went just one scoreless frame but allowed only one hit while recording a strikeout. Since then, Clark has made four more appearances, once as a starter, and built a 3-0 record with a staff-best 2.33 ERA.
Those numbers have earned Clark his second starting nod of the season, albeit under much more scrutiny than the previous one against lowly Moshannon Valley on May 8. He will start Monday for the sixth seeded Eagles (10-8-1) in the quarterfinals of the District 6-AA playoffs against number three seed Richland in Richland Township.
“He\’s solid with the pitching fundamentals,’ said Tyrone manager Tom Coleman of Clark. “He throws strikes and stays ahead in the count. That keeps the defense on its toes because they know batters are going to put the ball in play.”
That\’s not to say his fielders have been flawless in his defense. In 18 innings with Clark on the mound, the Eagles have committed seven errors – a small part of the 49 miscues for Tyrone this season. But Clark has rarely allowed gift base runners to affect his approach: of the nine total runs he\’s allowed, only three are unearned.
Instead, whether the situation has been bases empty with two out or runners in scoring position with no outs, Clark\’s philosophy has stayed the same – pound the strike zone and never give in. In his lone start against the Knights, he stranded seven base runners in scoring position, and pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning to come away without surrendering a run.
“He\’s done everything we\’ve asked of him so far,” said Coleman. “He\’s not an overpowering pitcher, but he mixes it up and that keeps hitters of balance.”
But while the state of a team\’s pitching staff is the key for any club with serious intentions of going deep into the postseason, Tyrone\’s will weigh just as heavily on its performance at the plate. Despite scrapping to finish above .500 and often looking offensively disinterested at best – as showcased in the team\’s 16-1 two-hit loss May 10 to West Branch – the Eagles have posted numbers that are bewildering for a team that wasn\’t even locked into the playoffs until the next-to-last week of the season.
Tyrone\’s eight everyday starters are batting a collective .344 with 137 hits and 126 runs. The Eagles have four players – Tyler Gillmen, Tyler Golden, Jamie Levinson and Justin Schopp – that have collected at least 20 hits, and senior Brit Mingle is just one behind with 19. In all, Tyrone has slammed 47 hits for extra-bases, including nine home runs, and scored 10 or more runs on eight occasions.
So how does a team with that kind of firepower manage to labor through a 10-8-1 season? Part of it may be due to the Eagles\’ relative youth. While they returned six letter-winners from a playoff contender in 2005, half of them were underclassmen. Of Tyrone\’s nearly 50 errors, 23 were committed by players in their position for the first season.
Part of it, too, has been inconsistency throughout the order. While hitters one through five have been pretty solid, with Schopp, Golden, Levinson, Gillmen, and Mingle providing most of the pop, the bottom of the order has been sporadic, producing only 32 hits.
“When you look at our one through five hitters, they\’re well above the average for everyday high school batters,” Coleman said. “Past five, we tend to be inconsistent, and that gives us trouble turning over the lineup.”
But mostly, it\’s been starting pitching. The Eagles starters have gone 8-8, and particularly in the early part of the season they found it difficult to survive an entire outing, giving up runs in bunches. That\’s one reason why Tyrone has allowed an average of 10.6 runs per loss – after falling behind by a seemingly insurmountable amount of runs, the Eagles had little motivation and little time to duke it out at the plate, with three game cut short by the mercy rule.
Still, their individual production is unquestionable and will factor heavily in their postseason run. Gillmen, in his second season as an everyday infielder, leads the team with a .423 average, including five doubles, three triples and four home runs. He also leads the team in slugging with an unheard of .813 average to go along with 31 RBI, 24 runs and nine stolen bases.
Golden\’s .415 average is right behind Gillmen and his 27 hits lead the club. Mingle has overcome an uncharacteristically slow start to hit .365, Levinson stands at .363, and Schopp leads the team with 29 runs to go along with a .333 average.
But to make it past the Rams will take more than a five-man offensive show, and the bottom of the Eagles\’ order seems to be coming around at just the right time. Two of the final three games of the season saw the bottom of Tyrone\’s lineup produce eight hits, which could bode well for postseason.
Still, pitching and defense have to be strong, Coleman said, starting Monday. He\’s hoping his team – which will start five players with no playoff experience – can grasp and respond to the finality of the playoff atmosphere.
“It\’s one-and-done so hopefully we\’ll have players make plays or the season could be cut short,” he said. “We normally finish games pretty strong defensively, and if we can find a way to start out like that I think we can make a run for the District championship.”
Tyrone Batting Statistics
Player AB R H RBI 2B 3B HR AVG.
Justin Schopp 60 9 20 8 5 0 0 333
Tyler Golden 65 18 27 15 2 1 1 .415
Jamie Levinson 55 16 20 14 2 0 2 .363
Tyler Gillmen 59 24 25 31 5 3 4 .423
Brinton Mingle 52 22 19 16 4 2 1 .365
Buddy Stotler 47 8 10 6 4 0 0 .212
Josh Clark 41 14 11 13 3 2 0 .268
Matt Brooks 19 5 5 1 1 0 0 .263
Doug Morrow 19 6 5 3 0 0 0 .263
Donnie Hunter 19 5 6 6 3 0 0 .315
Brock Anders 22 1 4 7 2 0 0 .181
Jesse Hertzler 11 3 2 1 0 0 0 .181
Mike Moore 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Randy Hoover 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Aaron Cunningham 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 —
TOTALS 474 145 154 12 13 18 8 324
Tyrone Pitching Statistics
Player IP H R ER SO BB ERA W-L
Josh Clark 18 16 9 6 1 5 12.33 3-0
Tyler Golden 38 47 41 33 26 31 6.07 4-2
Jamie Levinson 22.2 24 18 9 9 11 2.78 2-2
Randy Hoover 11 12 9 6 7 2 3.81 1-0
Donnie Hunter 5.2 14 7 6 2 1 7.42 0-0
Tyler Gillmen 16.1 35 43 26 10 14 11.10 0-4
Matt Brooks 1 4 5 3 0 1 21.00 0-0
