Five days after losing their first game of the District 31 Junior Baseball tournament, Township gained a measure of revenge on Saturday and captured the district title in the process.
Chris Tibel pitched a complete game and stranded the would-be tying run in the seventh inning to preserve a 3-2 win for Township over Kingston/Forty Fort on Saturday morning, bringing home the district championship and sending the Township team through to the Section 5 tournament starting on Tuesday.
Tibel, who pitched an eight-inning complete game against KFF earlier in the tournament, cruised through his first six frames without allowing a run.
KFF responded with a pair of singles and a hit batter, the latter single off the bat of Nicholas Lipinski to make it 3-1.
An RBI groundout from Russell Singer cut Township’s lead to 3-2 and moved the potential tying run to second. That’s where he would stay, as Tibel got the ground ball he needed to get the final out.
The game was scoreless through the first three and a half innings before Township scored three times in the bottom of the fourth to take the lead.
Tibel reached on error, then walks from Michael Larkin and Osman Avila drew walks to load the bases.
Jonah Rowlands hit a fly ball that was misplayed to score Tibel and Larkin, making it 2-0 Township. After another walk to load the bases, Logan Schatzel drew a walk to push Avila across with the third run.
Cody Karboski and Tommy Belles added hits for Township.
Brayden Tarnalicki had two hits for Kingston/Forty Fort, and also pitched three scoreless innings to start the game.
Kingston/Forty Fort 7, Township 2
To make Saturday’s game a necessary one in order to determine a district champion, Kingston/Forty Fort handed Township their first loss of the tournament on Monday.
The pitching combination of Chase Evans and TJ Needle navigated some sticky situations against a potent Township lineup, combining to strand 11 Township runners with just two runs allowed.
KFF took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first after Ryan Bobb blasted a triple to deep left field and Nicholas Lipinski drove him in.
Evans got the ball in the home half of the first and immediately found himself in a jam with Township loading the bases with two outs.
He came up with a strikeout, his first of six on the day, to leave the bases loaded. Township got runners on in the third and fourth innings as well, but Evans made sure each of those mini-rallies were extinguished.
An RBI single from Bobb made it 2-0 for Kingston/Forty Fort in the third inning, and the visitors stretched it to 4-0 in the fourth.
Evans ran into trouble again in the bottom of the fifth, and handed the ball over to Needle with the bases loaded and two outs against the heart of Township’s order.
Township was able to score one, on a Jordan Tonte base hit, but Needle got the next batter to line out to second and left three more runners aboard.
David Klansek cut it to 4-2 with a base hit scoring Michael Larkin in the sixth, but Needle again left the would-be tying runs on base and that would be the last gasp for Township’s offense.
Joey Racavitch pitched five strong innings for Township, allowing four runs (two earned) with three strikeouts. He also had one of Township’s five hits, along with one each from Tonte, Larkin, Klansek and Jonah Rowlands.
