The one thing the Tyrone Golden Eagles felt would always be a strength failed them yesterday against Mount Union, resulting in a perplexing 3-1 loss to the perennial District 6 power on the Trojan\u2019s home field.
\nTyrone managed only three hits against poised southpaw Bubba Brown, after averaging 10 hits and 11 runs over the first three games of the season. The loss was made even more confounding for manager Tom Coleman because the Eagles\u2019 pitching and fielding \u2013 two question spots entering the season \u2013 performed as well as they have at any time in the last two years.
\nEagle fielders acommitted just one error \u2013 a boot by shortstop Ben Gummo in the third that never impacted the game \u2013 while senior lefty Clint Wilson went six strong innings, allowing three earned runs, fanning seven and walking eight.
\nWilson pitched out of several tight spots, stranding five runners on second base, and the Eagles never surrendered the big inning in keeping it close. But when they were in need of a big inning when they got their own swings of the sticks, it never came.
\nTyrone\u2019s one through four hitters \u2013 who in games 1, 2 and 3 had gone 16-for-30 with eight extra base hits and 19 RBI, went 1-for-10 with just one run scored, and the Eagles only advanced four runners as far as second base.
\nMuch of that could be attributed to the work of Brown, who kept Golden Eagle hitters off balance with a quicker-than-it-seems fastball and a biting curve. He struck out six batters over six innings to log his first win of the season. Ian Colb pitched the seventh to earn the save.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to learn to manufacture runs against a pitcher of that caliber,\u201d said Coleman. \u201cIt will come with taking a better approach at the plate. We swung at some bad balls today, and what we need to do is put those in play and make the defense work.\u201d
\nThe loss was Tyrone\u2019s first of the season, dropping the Golden Eagles to 3-1 overall, and 1-1 in the Mountain Athletic Conference. Mount Union improved to 2-0-1 overall and 2-0 in the league.
\nTyrone looked out of sync offensively starting with its first at-bat, when Mertiff drew a lead-off walk only to be picked off at first by Brown just one pitch into the next batter\u2019s count. Gummo followed with a single, but it would be three more innings before an Eagle hitter would even get one out of the infield.
\nThe Trojans had little more success against Wilson, but they were much more effective than Tyrone at turning walks and singles into runs. In the second, Matt Hoffmaster led off with a walk and was plated two batters later on a double to the left-center gap by Ryan Pollicino, making it 1-0.
\nIn the third, Brown singled, stole second and third, and was brought home on an RBI single by Hoffmaster.
\nThe Trojan\u2019s 2-0 lead stuck until the sixth, when the Eagles finally manufactured a run of their own. Brit Mingle walked to start the frame and advanced to second on a ground out by Wilson. Derrick Soellner followed with a single to left to drive in Mingle and cut the score in half at 2-1.
\nThe Trojans got the run back in their next turn at bat on a Brown RBI single that plated Matt Baird, who was on after opening the inning with a walk.
\n\u201cClint threw his heart out for us today,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cHe started strong for us and he finished strong. Now we have to find a way as a team to come back and get a win next week against West Branch.\u201d
\nBrown complemented his throwing by going 3-for-4 at the plate with one RBI. Soellner had two hits to lead Tyrone.
\nDIAMOND NOTES: Wilson retired the side in order twice, including a strong first inning when he struck out the side \u2026 Jeremy Myers stole two bases for Tyrone as a courtesy runner \u2026 Tyrone\u2019s six through nine hitters went 0-for-10 with five strikeouts \u2026 the Eagles play West Branch on the road on Monday.
\nMount Union 3 Tyrone 1
\nTYRONE \u2013 Mertiff, 2b, 1-0-0; Gummo, ss, 4-0-1; Mingle, rf, 2-1-0; Wilson, p, 3-0-0; Soellner, c, 3-0-2; Myers, cr, 0-0-0; Gillmen, 3b, 2-0-0; Maceno, lf, 3-0-0; Stottler, 1b, 2-0-0; Levinson, pr, 0-0-0; Clark, cf, 3-0-0. TOTALS: 23-1-3.
\nMOUNT UNION \u2013 Martinez, 1b, 2-0-0; Brown, p-rf, 4-1-3; J. McConaughey, cr, 0-1-0; N. McConaughey, rf, 0-0-0; Colt, p, 0-0-0; McVey, dh, 2-0-0; Hoffmaster, ss, 2-1-1; Yocum, c, 2-0-0; Pollicino, 2b, 3-0-1; Baird, lf, 2-1-1; Donaldson, 3b, 2-0-0; Atherton, cf, 3-0-0. TOTALS: 22-3-5
\nTYRONE 000 001 0 \u2013 1-3-1
\nMOUNT UNION 011 001 X \u2013 3-6-0
\n2B: Pollicino
\nRBI: Pollicino, Hoffmaster, Brown, Soellner
\nSB: Myers 2, Mertiff
\nWP: Brown LP: Wilson Save: Colt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The one thing the Tyrone Golden Eagles felt would always be a strength failed them yesterday against Mount Union, resulting in a perplexing 3-1 loss to the perennial District 6 power on the Trojan\u2019s home field. Tyrone managed only three hits against poised southpaw Bubba Brown, after averaging 10 hits and 11 runs over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43163","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=43163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}