IRISH FIND THE GOLD AT THE END OF THE DISTRICT BRACKET
By Matt Maher
STRUTHERS, OH – Ursuline truly has the luck of the Irish on their side this postseason, winning big games in big ways against opponents that, on paper, are the Goliath to their David but still, they find a way to win and that’s just what happened on Wednesday night when Ursuline took down Canfield 6-1 in their District Finals matchup!
Both teams looked evenly matched through the first inning with both teams stranding runners on base and both pitchers working with some great pitches. While the first inning was even, the 2nd inning was anything but. Ursuline struck offensive gold against Canfield starter Anthony Groner when they scored 3 runs on him. After a leadoff fly out to center from Thomas Pesa, Joe Balog worked a walk and AJ Snyder found some luck with a fielding error that allowed him to get on. Johnny Cambert would step up and put a ball into deep left field and allow Balog to score the game’s first run. A 2-run RBI single from Anthony Triverri would tack on the next 2 runs for the Irish.
The offense kept coming for Ursuline in the 3rd after Rowan Urbach led off with a double and Luke Koller walked, Pesa would come through with a RBI bunt single to extend the lead to 4. 3 batters later, Groner would throw a wild pitch that would allow Koller to come home and proceed to walk Cambert. Another sac-fly would score the 6th run, this time from the bat of Jake Bednar.
Canfield joined Ursuline on the scoreboard in the 3rd thanks to an RBI single to right field from Dylan Mancini that would bring home Zain Jadallah. The Cardinals would struggle to crack any homes in CJ Franco’s pitching and if they did, the Irish defense would stand strong and put a stop to anything Canfield tried.
The Cardinals would keep Ursuline off the board for the remainder of the game but the 6 runs between the 2nd and 3rd innings proved to be enough and Ursuline took down another big opponent to move on past the district round!
CJ Frasco threw a complete game finishing with 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 H and 6 Ks.
Groner finished with 2 IP, 6 ER, 5 H and 1 K. Will Murphy finished with 1 IP, 0 ER, 0 H and 1 K and Ryan Weibling finished the game for Canfield with 4 IP, 0 ER, 1 H and 4 Ks.
Ursuline played a great, all around game and came out victorious in a well earned victory over the Cardinals. Canfield played a good game but at the end of the day, CJ Frasco proved to be unstoppable and was very hard to hit against. Congratulations to both teams on making it to the district finals and good luck to Ursuline as they move on to face West Branch in the next round.
