By BOB MILLER
\nDaily Herald Sports Editor
\nJuniata VFW came to Bellwood with some startling early season statistics. The VFW offense had outscored their first three opponents 30-1 and the Juniata pitchers had allowed just two hits in their first three ballgames. Defending champion Martin Oil was facing this juggernaut in their season opener in the George B. Kelley Federation.
\nAlthough they outhit and outscored Juniata VFW\u2019s first three foes, it wasn\u2019t nearly enough in an 11-4 triumph for the Juniata VFW club.
\nMartin Oil was their own worst enemy, committing five errors and walking 10 batters and hitting another.
\nAfter Juniata VFW opened the contest with three runs in the top of the first, two of them unearned, Martin Oil narrowed the score to 3-1 on an unearned run of their own.
\nJake Manning reached on an error, then stole second base. Nate Gray drew the first of two walks for the Martin Oil shortstop. Justin Manning reached on a fielder\u2019s choice that erased his brother. Juniata starting pitcher Josh Adams then walked Cameron Irwin, and Trey Mock to force in Gray with a run.
\nMartin Oil closed the gap to 3-2 with a single tally in the third inning. Gray walked and was replaced by Justin Manning, who hit into three fielder\u2019s choices in the game. Manning put himself in scoring position by stealing second and third base and scored on Martin Oil\u2019s first hit of the season, a soft liner to center by Ian Pankoke.
\nJuniata VFW got those runs back and more in the top of the fourth, when Rick McPhee bombed a three-run home run, a dozen feet up into the evergreen trees beyond the right field fence. With the help of Martin Oil walks and errors, Juniata VFW kept scoring, putting up a single run in the fifth and two each in the sixth and seventh to prevent a Martin Oil comeback.
\nMartin Oil got two runs in the fifth. Justin Manning walked, and went to second on a wild pitch by Ryan Beasom, who picked up the win in relief. Cam Irwin singled to score Manning and took second and Trey Mock walked for the third straight time. With one down, Chad Coho scored Irwin with a sacrifice fly to left.
\nMock took the loss for Martin Oil, surrendering six runs, four earned in four innings, on three hits, with three strikeouts and four walks. Newcomer Nate Plummer, a 16-year old, finished up for Martin Oil on the mound. Plummer gave up five runs in three innings with one K and six walks. Irwin had two singles for Martin Oil, who used a total of 18 players in the game.
\n\u201cTrey Mock pitched a pretty good game to begin the season,\u201d said Martin Oil manager Ed Davis. \u201cBut, we can\u2019t expect to win very many games walking 10 and having five errors. Trey actually threw only one bad pitch, the home run ball, and was a victim of a couple errors in the first inning. We ended up with just one less hit than Juniata VFW had, but need to put more hits together, score runs, and do a better job on defense keeping our opponents off the bases.\u201d
\nJuniata VFW 11\u00a0 Martin Oil 4
\nJuniata VFW – Weyandt, 2b, 2-1-1; McPhee, cf, 3-3-1; Lytle, rf-3b, 4-2-0; Walters, c, 3-0-1; Reilly, cr, 0-1-0; Smithmyer, ss, 4-1-1; Adams, p-rf, 3-1-2; Kawtoski, cr, 0-0-0; Beasom, 1b-p, 1-0-0; Black, lf, 3-1-1; Moschella, 3b-1b, 2-1-0; Elliot, p, 0-0-0; Colombo, cr, 0-0-0. TOTALS 25-11-7.
\nMartin Oil – Ja. Manning, c, 4-0-1; Davis, cr, 0-0-0; Gray, ss, 0-1-0; Plummer, p, 2-0-1; J. Coho, cr, 0-0-0; Ju. Manning, 2b, 3-2-0; Albright, lf, 0-0-0; Irwin, dh, 3-1-2; Mock, p-ss, 1-0-0; Wolfe, cr, 0-0-0; Pankoke, cf, 3-0-1; Doyle, ph, 1-0-0; C. Coho, 3b, 3-0-1; Gorby, pr, 0-0-0; Miller, 1b-rf, 3-0-1; Beech, ph, 1-0-0; Kovac, rf, 3-0-0, DeGennaro, 1b, 0-0-0. TOTALS 26-4-6.
\nJuniata VFW 300 312 2\u00a0\u00a0 11-7-2.
\nMartin Oil\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 101 020 0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 4-6-5.
\nE: Lytle, Smithmyer, Gray 2, Ja. Manning, Plummer, Albright.
\n2B:\u00a0 Adams 2.
\nHR: McPhee.
\nRBI: McPhee 3, Black 2, Walters, Adams, Irwin, Pankoke, C. Coho.
\nSO: Beasom 4, Elliot 2, Mock 3, Plummer 1.
\nBB: Adams 3, Beasom 4, Mock 4, Plummer 6.
\nWP: Beasom\u00a0\u00a0 LP: Mock\u00a0\u00a0 Save:Elliot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By BOB MILLER Daily Herald Sports Editor Juniata VFW came to Bellwood with some startling early season statistics. The VFW offense had outscored their first three opponents 30-1 and the Juniata pitchers had allowed just two hits in their first three ballgames. Defending champion Martin Oil was facing this juggernaut in their season opener in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}